Crusaders crowned champs
Scott Robertson looked into the eyes of his jubilant Crusaders players after their 25-17 win over the Lions, and could see how relieved they were to finally be the kings of Super Rugby.
The victory in the final over the Lions, who were reduced to 14 men when flanker Kwagga Smith was red carded late in the first half, has elevated the South Island club once again to the penthouse of the Sanzaar competition and marked a fairytale finish to the season for first-year coach Robertson and captain Sam Whitelock.
‘‘There’s a sense of relief,’’ Robertson said after the match yesterday. ‘‘Back when I was playing, and I don’t I say that lightly, we had a championship team and you get a feeling. That is the feeling we had.’’
Former All Blacks back rower Robertson, who won four titles with the Crusaders as a player between 1998-2002, said he was desperate to give his men the chance to experience the same emotions.
This win in the heartland of South African rugby ensured the Crusaders chalked-up their eighth title win. Only three squad members were in the Crusaders side that last won the competition in 2008.
‘‘One of our themes this year was ‘me, we’, which was the ability for me to give everything to the team and the we is for our families and the rest of the staff at Rugby Park,’’ he said.
‘‘Just friends and family. And the we part we get to enjoy when we return back to Christchurch. The integration on and off the park this year has been world-class. I am just really proud as the Crusaders coach I got the chance to lead these guys to a title because they deserve it.’’
The celebrations would go long into the night in Johannesburg though after Robertson, nicknamed Razor, started the party in trademark fashion with break dancing on the Ellis Park pitch. Break dancing after a title win was a tradition Robertson started as coach of the Canterbury NPC team.
‘‘Oh look the ‘Hoo-hay Razor’ song comes out at the end of these campaigns and I am more than happy to do that when we have situations like that,’’ Robertson said of his break dancing antics.
‘‘The boys start singing and you get a bit of an old twinkle in your toes, and off you go. It is a great way to finish off the campaign.’’
Robertson, a loose forward, won four titles between 1998-2002 under former coaches Wayne Smith and Robbie Deans. Now has done the double - the first person to claim crowns as a player and coach.
‘‘It is massive me,’’ he said. I played for eight years, I was the most capped Crusader when I left with 86 games. It is something I actually regretted, going to Perpignan. I wanted to be the first Crusader to get to 100.
‘‘And now to come back as a coach, I have hit the 100-mark in being involved in the Crusaders and to win a fifth title … It has helped. The questions were in my head, and I have answered a couple of them for sure.’’
Many doubted whether the rookie coach could guide the team to a title in their first year. That was used as fuel to motivate his players.
Winning in Jo’burg - the Crusaders have become the first foreign side to win a title on South African soil - surely means this is the club’s greatest of title wins. Playing at altitude could have made this Mission Impossible.
A strong start, the Crusaders’ 25-3 lead by the 53rd minute enabled them to build an allimportant buffer before the Lions made their inevitable comeback at 1700m above sea level. The turning point came in the 39th minute when Smith inexplicably took Crusaders fullback David Havili out in the air.
Havili, who had his eyes transfixed on the ball, had his undercarriage whipped out from under him and landed in an undignified heap; although early fears he had been injured were quickly allayed, there was no doubt Smith was about to be issued a one-way ticket to the showers.
Referee Jaco Peyper had no option but to tell the No 7 to go and take the walk of shame, telling Smith it was his responsibility to look after the man in the orbit. Not even the massive crowd, a spectacular blanket of red inside the famous ground that was hosting its first final in the Sanzaar compe- tition, could muster-up the energy to disagree. They knew Smith had to go.
Robertson was adamant Peyper made the correct call. ‘‘It was the right outcome. Is it good to have a red card in the final? No. Is it tough on the Lions? Yes. That is footy. Kwagga Smith is a great player and it is a shame it had to come to that, but the rules and the laws are as they are.’’
‘‘Now we have really got a fight on our hands,’’ Lions coach Johan Ackermann, who was in his final game in charge of the team prior to moving to England, said during his halftime speech. He wasn’t joking.
The Crusaders trotted in for their halftime pow-wow ahead 15-3, and then roared out after the break to compound the Lions’ misery by immediately adding another try to No 8 Kieran Read under the bar. With Richie Mo’unga adding the conversion that put the Crusaders ahead 22-3.
Even with coach Scott Robertson going to his bench early, he had replaced his props by the 47th minute, and emptied the entire bench before the three-quarter mark, the Crusaders began to tire as the Lions generated more heat in their attack.
A try to Malcolm Marx, the bulky hooker charged over near a ruck, in the 63rd minute finally gave the Jo’burg crowd something to shout about and when replacement prop Corne Fourie scored with seven minutes left, then began to cheer themselves hoarse.
But the Crusaders held firm and immediately after the match Whitelock made it clear how much this win meant to himself and the club: ‘‘It’s great, no-one had us picked from the word ‘go’. It was awesome, we just believed in ourselves and started our season really well,’’ he said.
‘‘It has just been an amazing year. We knew we had to play, the Lions are such a great side - they have shown it all year and scored a massive amount of points in the last 20 minutes. We knew we had to keep playing, keep attacking.’’
There was only one team in the contest in the first half, with the New Zealanders having the Lions’ measure in all facets.
The Crusaders’ rushing defensive line repeatedly prevented the Lions from generating any profit from their attack; it was often bolstered by the bodies of their big forwards, a by-product of their decision to limit the number of men threw committed into the breakdowns where openside flanker Matt Todd was such a menace.
Then there was the scrum - Crusaders loosehead Joe Moody had a field day against Ruan Dreyer, who conceded multiple penalties
If Todd was liked a mad dog with a bone in the rucks, then the backs were like whippets chasing cats when they managed to get their hands on turnover ball.
A fine tackle by Read on Lions first five-eighth Elton Jantjies in the eighth minute resulted in the pill bobbling forward, and when it was shifted to Seta Tamanivalu the left wing must have felt like the luckiest man in Africa. With only fresh air standing between Tamanivalu and five points, he gassed almost 80m to score the first try.
Five minutes later centre Jack Goodhue joined Tamanivalu on the score sheet. Ryan Crotty gave the visitors precious go-forward, and when the ball was swung wide Read, who could have scored himself, unselfishly slipped the final transfer to Goodhue.
It was in start contrast to the final quarter when the Crusaders were forced to defend as if their livelihoods depended on it.
‘‘Our boys were shattered with 20 to go,’’ Robertson said.
‘‘It was like we needed 12 (men) on the bench. We knew the last 20 minutes, the Lions had won the majority of their games over a number of years.
‘‘We were just scrambling. I just kept sending messages, ‘you have to be strong with your body language, you have to break this game down into two minute blocks’ because we were gone and they were desperate.
‘‘Having that lead early was critical for us.’’