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Crusaders captain Christie urges side to 'get up to the level of Sevu Reece'
Crusaders captain Tom Christie has urged his side to ‘get up the level of Sevu Reece’ in order to make a playoff push after going down 37-15 to the Western Force in Perth.
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The Force beat the Crusaders for the first time in over a decade with a comprehensive showing, going into the sheds up 16-5 at halftime despite an early Crusaders try to Levi Aumua.
Despite two tries to Sevu Reece and George Bell, the boot of Wallaby Ben Donaldson kept pushing the lead ahead before a final Force flurry in the last quarter took the game away. The home side put together three tries from the rolling maul that stunned the Crusaders’ pack.
Captain Christie put the loss down to “too many errors” but said he holds strong belief in the squad to be able to turn the problem areas around.
“That one hurts,” Christie put it bluntly to Stan Sport.
“To answer your question, we made a lot of errors. As we know any errors let any team into a game.
“The solution is we work on those areas, we know we can attack, we know we’ve got game breakers, and we know we can string enough phases together to score amazing tries.
“We need to work on making that happen more often and at the other end, not let them in as easily.”
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The loss put the Crusaders in 12th place at the bottom of the ladder, putting them at risk of picking up the wooden spoon.
On making finals from here, Christie conceded no other team has pulled it off before, but he didn’t want the team to concern themselves on where they sit on the table.
“To be honest, I’m not interested in the ladder, if we start winning games then we will put ourselves in a position,” Christie said.
“Yes, it is unique, yes, no team has probably done it from here but I’ve still got full faith, full trust in out team that when we get it right, we are a dangerous team.
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“I said it a couple of weeks ago, we’ve got to get it right more often and we’ll give ourselves a chance.”
The one shining light for the Crusaders continues to be Sevu Reece who was once again a game breaker.
He provided the offload for Levi Aumua’s try and showed his power and balance to score with a one-on-one match up on the right edge in the second half.
The Crusaders captain called Reece “the best player in the country” who the team needs to follow.
“Sevu is a wonderful asset to have on this team. He’s a great man, he’s a great friend, and we value him highly as an individual.
“His rugby talent, he’s the best in the country, there’s no other way to put it. Potentially the best in this competition, he shows that week in week out.
“The rest of us need to get up to his level.”
Comments on RugbyPass
My heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
69 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
1 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
2 Go to commentsSo if this ain’t the best Irish team ever then who exactly is? I don’t remember any other Irish team being this good & winning a series in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Yes I may rip them often for 8 X QF RWC exits & twice not even making it to the QF, but they’re a damn good team who many think can only improve, including me!
69 Go to commentsNot a squeek out of Leinster for weeks about this match. So quiet. The first team have been quitely building for this encounter under Nienaber’s direction. All fresh, all highly motivated. They are expecting a season’s best performance from Northhampton. They will match that. They will be fresher and apparently they will have 80,000 out of the 83,000 shouting for them. I do expect Northhampton to turn up big time. Not to be missed. On a tangent it is evident how the loss of a few Premiership teams has in some respect helped other Premiership teams and England. More quality over less teams makes the teams better, which has a knock on effect on England. Not the only factor contributing to England’s rise but one of them.
5 Go to commentsOur very own monster teddy bear Ox😍💪
17 Go to commentsThis is might be the most generalised, entitled, patronising, out-of-pocket cultural indictment on a group of people you’ll ever see on what is supposedly a sports publication. I can only assume the author is weak like a woman or homosexual. I’m feeling an incredible range of emotions but I am not quite sure how to express them. I might go beat up a hockey player - assuming that’s okay with Duane and the boys? 🙂
9 Go to commentsBest thing the Welsh clubs could do is apply to join Gallagher prem surely be more exciting matches for there support than they have now.
2 Go to commentsRugbyPass writers are useless! you guys should get a real job because you all suck at writing about rugby!!!
9 Go to comments