Crusade at the crossroads
The champion team’s worst start in 28 years has alarmed Crusaders fans, but coach Rob Penney says they’re still capable of beating anyone.
Richard Knowler reports.
Anyone walking through the doors at the Crusaders’ HQ would find it difficult not to be dazzled by the proliferation of trophies on display. The collection of cups and memorabilia is impressive, as is the modern, spacious foyer that wouldn’t look out of place in a commercial law office in a central business district.
Don’t be fooled. The building, on the corner of Rugby Park in a residential suburb in Christchurch, has a reputation for hot-housing young athletes into the best rugby players in the world.
“To inspire through being the best,’’ reads one of the statements on the building’s wall.
Then there’s the handshakes and fist bumps. A lot of skin gets traded as staff members greet newcomers to their haunt.
Former All Blacks lock Sam Whitelock, who made 182 appearances for the Crusaders and is now in France, once explained that research showed if you could build a connection with physical touch, it was easier to have hard conversations.
Given the Crusaders’ jittery start to their season – and that is putting it kindly – there must have been plenty of those in recent weeks.
Because this proud team, which boasts the most successful record in Super Rugby, is at risk of becoming one of the competition’s punching bags. Usually it’s the Crusaders who are swinging the sledgehammer.
But not this season.
Before meeting the Chiefs in Christchurch last night, the Crusaders had an 0-5 record, their worst start since the competition began in 1996.
They were anchored at the bottom of the competition log on just two competition points; an anaemic attack, a dysfunctional lineout, basic catch-pass errors and too many missed tackles.
Few, if any, of their loyal supporters forecast such a disastrous start under new coach Rob Penney, who signed a two-year deal as a replacement for Scott Robertson after the latter was appointed All Blacks coach.
The Crusaders were expected to enter a rebuilding phase after All Blacks Richie Mo’unga and Whitelock went to France and Japan, but the arrival of Penney, a loose forward who played more than 100 games for Canterbury, was supposed to coincide with a smooth transition.
It has been anything but. No-one could accuse them of not trying. It’s just that they have been, well, falling to bits.
The Crusaders, who won seven consecutive titles when Robertson was in control between 2017 and 2023, lost to the Chiefs, Waratahs, Fijian Drua, Hurricanes and Blues in their opening games. In such circumstances, all roads lead to the head coach. That’s where the buck stops.
Asked this week about how the rough start had been for him on a personal level, Penney was bullish: “Fantastic, thanks. I’m fine now. Just coaching. Just trying to get the boys better. Just trying to get the team functioning as well as we can.”
That being the case, he’s had plenty to get his teeth into in recent weeks.
The Crusaders’ players and coaches haven’t bleated about their circumstances – a significant list of injuries has blown a big hole in their list of players – stating they’ve got to accept their medicine.
Everyone has to take responsibility, says Penney. The players aren’t in Super Rugby to serve an apprenticeship.
“At this level, it’s not a place you really need to learn your trade. You should really, I guess, have a skill set and a mental aptitude to be able to cope. We do have amazing talent, and we are rapt with that, and we are focused on just growing them.”
Growth is one thing. Winning games is another. Following the defeats you only have to see the young players down on their haunches, or slumped over with hands on knees, to get a sense of how much their self-confidence has been bruised.
Following his appointment, Penney stated he had been “given a definite brief” by the Crusaders board: providing advice and support for his assistants, was a part of that portfolio.
Tamati Ellison, who will also work parttime as a member of the All Blacks staff after Super Rugby Pacific, didn’t want to rush into the role of head coach. Bringing in Penney, who said “the Crusaders board have an aspiration”, was to help Ellison upskill.
“I have bought in, and committed entirely, to achieve that,’’ Penney said last year. “If along the way, things change, I am a passionate coach and I love coaching. Who knows what the future might hold.”
After his final year coaching Canterbury in 2011 (he was a forwards assistant coach with the Crusaders for one year, in 2006), Penney experienced the peripatetic nature of professional coaching; he started with Irish club Munster, went to Japan, landed in Sydney with the Waratahs for a couple of years, and then returned to Japan.
Then he got the plum job at the Crusaders.
His time with the Waratahs wasn’t a happy one.
Penney was sacked less than two years into a three-year contract in late March 2021. He has had the luxury of having familiar faces around him at the Crusaders. Chief executive officer Colin Mansbridge was an old Burnside rugby club team-mate, and they had kept in regular contact over the years. Angus Gardiner, who is in a influential role as general manager of professional rugby, had been the Canterbury NPC manager when Penney was coach.
Although the Rugby Park offices and players’ facilities have had a significant facelift since he last worked there, Penney could look out of the windows and note the training field was still the same block where his Canterbury teams trained between 2006 and 2011.
Penney still has time to prevent the Crusaders sliding off the rails, and insists they can still make the top eight and then get up for the title defence.
“We have just got to cement a place in the playoffs and we feel as though we are competitive with anybody. On our day we can beat anybody,” he says.
“We have just got to get ourselves there.”
At Apollo Projects Stadium, Christchurch: Matatū 37 (Rosie Kelly 12’, Grace Brooker 18’, Georgia Ponsonby 28’, 40’, Lucy Jenkins 56’, 71’, Martha Mataele 53’ tries; Liz Mcgoverne con) Hurricanes Poua 17 (Layla Sae 42’, Monica Tagoai 64’, Rangimarie Sturmey 79’ tries; Isabella Waterman con). HT: 22-0.
Red card: Shakira Baker (Poua, 39’).