Crusaders unfazed by draw oddity

Scott Robertson doesn’t believe the Crusaders have been shafted by the Super Rugby Aotearoa schedule-makers.

Others might disagree, given the Crusaders and Chiefs are the only sides in the 10-week competition who effectively benefit from one of their two byes.

A sole week off to recharge the batteries and allow aching bodies to heal before winding up again isn’t ideal, especially not when the matches border on test-match intensity.

‘‘It’s a good point, [and it depends] how you look at it,’’ Crusaders coach Robertson said.

‘‘I think because we get our rhythm – four games in a row – we don’t actually mind playing it.’’

The Crusaders had a round one bye, and the Chiefs have a bye in the final round, weeks off which essentially don’t help the cause.

But someone had to cop it that way and there will be no sympathy from the other teams, particularly the Highlanders, who have had their fair share of untimely byes in recent years.

Robertson maintains he isn’t fazed, even though the 3-0 Blues will be recharged when they roll into Christchurch next weekend to tackle the Crusaders, and again before they host the red and blacks in the final match of the competition.

On the other hand, the Crusaders’ remaining bye splits their eight matches down the middle.

‘‘We had nine games in a row last year, probably not as brutal, but we had a big tour to South Africa,’’ Robertson said.

‘‘We just found the more we played, the better it was for us as a group, we got our training week right, and then we just took the full week off for a bye, come back in and the boys are hissing.’’

Before the Crusaders turn their attention to the Blues humdinger, they must deal with the Aaron Mauger-coached Highlanders in Dunedin tonight.

On the evidence of the first three rounds, that’s easier said than done.

Not only did the Highlanders roll the Chiefs under the roof in round one, they came within a whisker of tipping over the Blues at Eden Park last week.

Many would argue they perhaps should have won. Regardless, it’s clear the Dunedin-based outfit are significantly more dangerous than the team which flopped to a 1-1-4 record pre-Covid.

‘‘Early in the season, they probably didn’t have a couple of things go their way, and they have now. It can change pretty quickly,’’ Robertson said.

‘‘They have got a hard-working coaching group and a hard-working group of men. That’s how you get those changes in anything.’’

Given the miserable weather in Christchurch the past 10 days, the Crusaders swapped Rugby Park for English Park’s artificial turf and the well-drained Orangetheory Stadium in preparation for the hard and fast surface in Dunedin.

‘‘We are quite happy to play under the roof, especially with the weather we have been having. They are fast games, high tempo. We’ve got an extremely fit team and enjoy that style of play,’’ Robertson said.

The Highlanders had sold 18,000 of the 22,800 available tickets by Thursday, and are bringing back the team’s theme song from their Otago Highlanders days, albeit with tweaked lyrics to appease Southland folk.

Robertson, a member of the 1999 Crusaders who won the final in Dunedin, knows the original version well.

‘‘Outstanding. Good, any atmosphere and hype is required. Hopefully she is sold out and it’s nice and raucous. It’s good, bit of tradition, bit of old memories, party at Tony Brown’s.

‘‘It was pretty special, 1999, that second win was tough. They had some team, they had a hell of a team if you look at it, and we were sort of a team that was building. Good memories, that [Carisbrook] embankment used to crank. It probably wasn’t as PC back then, was it? How feral that embankment used to get.’’