Hopes fading fast for late Crusaders revival
Time is fast running out for the Crusaders. Following their 37-15 loss to the Western Force in the battle of Super Rugby Pacific’s bottom teams, the champions are last with just one win from eight games.
The game in Perth started well for the Crusaders when off-season signing Levi Aumua crossed for his first try of the campaign within five minutes.
It soon went downhill from there, however, with the Force leading 16-5 at halftime. The Crusaders got within seven points midway through the second half but the Force dominated the final quarter of the game to clear away.
The Crusaders turned over the ball 14 times and were unable to make the most of having the bulk of possession.
“That one hurts,” captain Tom Christie said. “We made a lot of errors, and errors let any team into a game. The solution is we work on those areas.
“We know we can attack, we know you’ve got game-breakers and we know we can string together enough phases to score some amazing tries, so we just need to work on making that happen more often and obviously, at the other end, not letting them in as easy.”
Despite having just one win this season, the Crusaders have three bonus points which are helping to keep their hopes of a season revival afloat. With seven points, they are six outside the top eight and a spot in the playoffs.
However, they face a tough schedule through their final six games, with just one against a team not currently in the top eight — and that’s their local derby against the 10th-placed Highlanders.
Christie admits it would be unusual to see a team surge into title contention from last through the back end of the season.
“To be honest, I’m not interested in the ladder. We start winning games, we’ll put ourselves in a position.
“Yes, it’s unique. Yes, no team’s probably done it from here, but I’ve still got full faith, full trust in our team that when we get it right, we’re a dangerous team. We’ve just got to get it right more often and we’ll give ourselves a chance.”