Celebrations over, now for more silverware
Anything short of five regular season wins might not pass muster in the new trans-Tasman Super Rugby competition.
That’s the impression the Crusaders have as they prepare for Saturday night’s home fixture against the Brumbies in Christchurch.
Hence, why they’ve drawn a line in the sand and moved on from the high of winning Super Rugby Aotearoa last weekend.
Five rounds of New Zealand-Australia clashes, followed by a final between the top two teams in the 10-team competition, means there’s no margin for error, or time to ease into the competition.
‘‘There’s been a bit of chat around that [needing to win all five games]. All the bonus points are going to be important, there’s obviously no golden point any more,’’ assistant coach Andrew Goodman said.
He was speaking after the Crusaders’ first training session of the week yesterday, three days after they toppled the Chiefs
24-13 to bag a fifth straight title.
Given temperatures reached
25degC in the Garden
City during training, there was a pre-season feel to the session as some players donned caps, and a barbecue sizzled on the sideline.
However, it was otherwise business as usual as the players went about their work, knowing another trophy is up for grabs.
‘‘Not this group of young men. They’re a pretty outstanding bunch of lads, they’re very hungry and driven.
‘‘We talk about it a lot, but they come in to get better every day. We’ll drive that as a coaching team,’’ Goodman said when asked if it would be a challenge to refocus the troops.
‘‘It was a celebration, and then obviously by the end of today we’ve moved on. There’s another trophy to win, a new focus and a new energy.’’
Including lock Sam Whitelock, who made life miserable for the Chiefs due to his lineout prowess, and captain Scott Barrett, all the team’s big guns trained yesterday, having ‘‘celebrated appropriately’’ on Saturday night and Sunday.
‘‘It was awesome. It took 48 hours at least to get the smile off my face,’’ Barrett said.
‘‘We’ve talked about it this morning, so proud of the boys of what they did on Saturday night, and our focus shifted pretty quickly to the Brumbies.
‘‘I’m sure they’re hurting from their final loss, and they’ll be keen to make a good start in this competition.’’
The Brumbies, once fierce rivals of the Crusaders, haven’t beaten the red-and-blacks in Christchurch in 21 years, while their last win against them was in 2009.
If that wasn’t grim enough, no overseas side has beaten the Crusaders in Christchurch since the Rebels knocked them over in the opening round of the 2015 season.
But Barrett has a message for his men ahead of their first game against foreign opposition since they beat the Sunwolves in Brisbane last March.
‘‘They [Aussie teams] play a different style of rugby, they will test you in different areas. If we turn up to this competition thinking it’s going to be easy, we won’t be holding that trophy up, that’s for sure.’’
Goodman stressed the importance of starting the competition with a hiss and a roar, before heading to Brisbane to face the champion Reds Saturday week.
He doesn’t expect the Brumbies to go away from their strengths. In other words, they’ll back their maul and scrum, and attempt to execute a territory-bases game plan.
‘‘We always work a week ahead, so our analysis team did an amazing job of looking at the Brumbies and giving us some really good information to help lead the week today.’’