Crusaders look to self-belief ahead of crunch match in Fiji
Ryan Crotty has been in this boat before.
And, believe it or not, he’s far from the only one who knows how it feels to start a season with two straight losses when you look around the Crusaders’ Rugby Park headquarters.
Mitchell Drummond was there in 2014, the last time it happened. So were Owen Franks, Joe Moody and Willi Heinz. And don’t forget new assistant coach Matt Todd, who was in his fourth season as a player.
“Belief is never a question for this group,” Crotty said before the team trained yesterday.
“We knuckle down and work hard and good things always happen. It just comes down to how we prepare. Bone deep and that’s how you get the result.”
Back with the team after four years in Japan, the fifth-most capped Crusader in franchise history sure isn’t panicked after back-to-back losses to the Chiefs and Waratahs to start the season. Frustrated? Sure.
But panicked? No, that’s not going to help anyone ahead of Saturday afternoon’s clash with the Fijian Drua in steamy Lautoka, where the Crusaders suffered a shock one-point defeat in round three a year ago.
There has been no shortage of players shouldering responsibility since the reigning champions returned home to debrief their 37-24 defeat in Melbourne last week, which makes Crotty confident the bangedup and somewhat new-look team makes some serious shifts this week.
“I guess when you are making errors, you don’t have the ability to apply pressure ... that’s the gist of it,” Crotty said, knowing the Lautoka conditions make ball-handling tricky.
“Are they decision-making errors? You try and figure out why they are happening and then you go about applying the training to fix them.”
Errors have been the primary root behind the Crusaders’ early-season wobbles, particularly inside their own half.
After gifting the Chiefs two of their three tries in round one, the Waratahs scored directly from a charged-down David Havili kick, and a loose ball at a ruck.
Other mistakes which led to points or pressure included a Noah Hotham knockon at the base of a ruck, Taha Kemara spilling a sluggish Havili pass, and the Crusaders inexplicably not burning a bunch more seconds before kicking the ball out on the cusp of halftime.
Rather than trailing 16-10 at the break, they jogged to the sheds down 23-10 after the Tahs executed a smooth set-piece move.
“I think we’re pretty dialled in after a good, honest review yesterday,” forwards
coach Dan Perrin said. “Clearly, we weren’t good enough on Saturday, too many errors, so the boys have had a good honest review and held each other to account.
“The sun has come out today and we’re ready to go.”
While the Crusaders opted to sit key players against the Drua this time last year, don’t expect big changes as the red and blacks attempt to avoid their first 0-3 start since 1996.
That includes another likely start for 20-year-old pivot Kemara, who hasn’t had the type of clean, fast, front-foot ball any playmaker craves.
The same was the case during the New Zealand under-20s’ brutal World Cup campaign last year, meaning the highly touted Kemara has not been able to display his game at a time he’s trying to find his feet at this level.
That’s prompted Perrin to issue his forward pack a message this week.
"He’s a guy with extreme talent, and we’ve got to nurture that, we’ve got to help him out, we’ve got to be better for him,” Perrin said.
“We’ve spoken about that as a forward pack around how we can help him, and the players outside of him, how we can help him.”