Crusaders make their beds - then lie in them!
Matt McIlraith describes the genius thinking behind the Crusaders success
Matt Sexton laughingly calls it ‘the bedmaking test’. All Black prop Nepo Laulala passed it. So did Scottish winger Sean Maitland.
The ‘test’ was applied by Sexton’s wife Cate, while he was managing the Canterbury rugby academy, and hosted aspiring young players who were on trial to enter the development system.
While the mostly teenage players stayed with the Sexton’s, unbeknown to them, their daily living habits were being closely observed.
Whether they made their bed. Whether they helped with the washing up after dinner, said please and thank you, and were good with the Sexton’s young children.
None are qualities that you associate with the rugby field, but they are good indicators of individual character.
And it is good characters that have made the Crusaders the almost unstoppable juggernaut that they have been for the majority of the Christchurchbased club’s 25-year existence.
The Crusaders’ win in last year’s Super Rugby Aotearoa added another page to the team’s glittering story and provided the final chapter for Crusade On, a celebration of the team’s first 25 years.
Alongside 11 titles, the Crusaders have also finished runners-up in Super Rugby four times.
After finishing last in the inaugural Super 12, and fifth a year later, they have only twice failed to make the play-offs in the last 23 years. This includes 2011 when, despite Christchurch being wrecked by an earthquake, and having to play every match away from home, the Crusaders still made the final.
It also includes 2019, when the shock of the grotesque attacks on the city’s Islamic community which left 51 dead, and the backlash against the team’s name, failed to derail the side from winning the title for the third season in a row.
Current coach Scott Robertson is a great example of the Crusaders’ success story. Originally from Bay of Plenty in the North Island, Robertson arrived at the Crusaders as a promising young flanker in the team’s first year. By the time he left for France in 2004, he had won the title four times.
Many of the techniques and methods evident in his approach were learned while being coached first by Wayne Smith and then Robbie Deans at Crusaders.
Many of the coaching traits exhibited by Smith and Deans have their origin in the former legendary Canterbury coach Alex Wyllie, whom the pair played under during the 1980s when the province famously held the Ranfurly Shield.
The values and man management techniques they learned under Wyllie were passed onto their players and are now making their way to through the next generations.
Passing the knowledge down the years has been one of the key ingredients that has sustained the Crusaders’ performance levels.
It is a feature of the team’s success as applicable to the corporate world as it is to sports, as are many of the lessons out of the Crusaders’ story.
The Crusaders knowingly identify and manage their next generation of leaders, so that the all-important intellectual property is retained, while the culture evolves as those tasked with the future stewardship of the club bed in.
Robertson’s last year on the playing roster was in 2003. Eleven members of that team have since coached professionally. They include Robertson’s predecessor Todd Blackadder, as well as Mark Hammett, Daryl Gibson, Aaron Mauger, Tabai Matson and Leon MacDonald.
Blackadder, Hammett, Gibson, Mauger and Matson have all subsequently coached in the UK, while each of MacDonald, Mauger, Hammett, Matson, and Brad Thorn, coached in Super Rugby last year.
The fact so many of the former players are involved coaching professionally reflects the rush from rivals to source Crusaders’ intellectual property, just as corporates enviously eye the key executives responsible for the success of others.
Sustaining success doesn’t occur by accident. The Crusaders have a method that works. A key understanding that was mastered in the early years was that building something enduring takes time.
The Crusaders have always scouted effectively, swooping on the rough diamonds of others, and polishing them into titlewinners. Players like French international Tony Marsh and the All Blacks Norm Berryman, Ron Cribb, Caleb Ralph and Rico Gear had all been tried elsewhere before hitting their career jackpot in Christchurch.
The focus in more recent years has been on cherry-picking prime talent out of North Island schools, to supplement the ever-increasing output of local schoolboy prodigies such as Will Jordan, Quentin Strange and last year’s boom loose forward, Cullen Grace.
It helps that players tend to stay at the Crusaders a lot longer. While the other four New Zealand teams have all had over 300 representatives in 25 seasons, the Crusaders are yet to break 250.
Having star players helps. It can’t be ignored that each of the Crusaders’ title-winning teams has had the dominant players of their generation in key leadership positions, most notably at first-five-eighths.
Before Richie Mo’unga, there was Dan Carter. Before him, Andrew Mehrtens.
Each were home grown. Each understood the importance of the heritage, and the responsibility they carried when wearing the jersey.
While these players could not have exerted their huge influence without support, the ‘magic dust’ they sprinkled was often decisive.
Although 2020 is going to be remembered for Covid-19, the year saw a changing of the guard at the Crusaders as five senior All Blacks left.
That the loss of nearly 900 games of collective experience failed to bring the team back to the field is testament to the strength of the culture, and the depth of the planning, that ensures the Crusaders are never caught short.
It is an example many clubs north of the equator would do well to follow. It is also the reason why they, rather than the All Blacks, are currently the true benchmark of New Zealand rugby.