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Crusaders hire external firm to undertake autopsy of disastrous season

Codie Taylor of the Crusaders leads his team onto the field during the round 14 Super Rugby Pacific match between Crusaders and Blues at Apollo Projects Stadium, on May 25, 2024, in Christchurch, New Zealand. (Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)

The Crusaders finished their season on a high with a 43-10 win over Moana Pasifika but it wasn’t enough to secure playoff qualification as the Fijian Drua locked up the final spot.

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Their fate was left outside their control after too many stumbles throughout the season, settling for a 4-10 record under first year head coach Rob Penney.

In his post-match interview Penney lamented the fine margins that the side has had this year, with six games decided by seven points or less and two games on full-time.

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But now that the season is in the history books, the club will begin the post-mortem starting with a review by external agency Gain Line Analytics.

“We do a review. We do one every year, sometimes we get external help, and this year we will,” CEO Colin Mansbridge told media during a 20 minute interview session.

The Crusaders boss steered away from speculating on the future of Penney who is still under contract for another season.

“We will do the review,” Mansbridge said when asked on Penney’s future.

“We’ve got to make sure we focus on doing a really quality review, it’s going to be performance focussed, it will be focussed on what we can do better.

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“We won’t be scapegoating anyone and we won’t be making any knee-jerk reactions.”

Aside for conjecture around team selections, which Mansbridge said was a common issue among the players every year, there was no evidence of team unhappiness from within the squad.

“There was no evidence of dysfunction,” he said.

“You go through a great season, and everybody remembers lifting the trophy, and they forget all of the grit that it’s taken you to get there.

“Everyone thinks it’s this wonderful, perfect experience…and they forget everything that’s happened in between.”

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Comments

15 Comments
J
Jon 307 days ago

These are the guys that do the cohesion predictions? That will be a very interesting review and they have likely already told the Crusaders of their expections for them given such a young and inexperienced squad without all their injured and departed players.

I wonder if any of that will get leaked out, perhaps only if the cohesion metric predicted such a season? Actually even that would like badly upon the backoffice, I suspect it likely we will never know what Gain Line Analytics made of this season now!

Unless the PUs put its publication to vote?

m
monty 308 days ago

If they had another round up their sleeve then no doubt the sadas wouldv been top8. I say leave things alone and get into the next season I rekon the turn around will carry on.

J
Jen 308 days ago

Save your money. Just learn from the bad stuff and play better next year. Lost loads of key players and had half the team out broken for most of the season.

E
Egg 308 days ago

No scapegoats. No knee-jerk reactions. Just excuses in an expensive report under file 13. I’ll give the saders some free consulting - no planning after Razor. Just let things fall flat to rebuild. Easy.

W
Wayneo 308 days ago

With the civil war going on over in NZR you have to wonder if these guys can afford to throw money around on consulting firms?

Consultants just going to charge them thousands for the privilege of telling them that the brain drain is hurting them, they played like pork chops & maybe some insights gleaned from reading the various rugby blog posts with a couple of graphs thrown in to dicky the report up.

My suggestion is they forego the consultants and get a subscription to watch the URC, English Premiership, Top14 and EPCR competitions so that they can learn a bit from all the players and coaches that have left already NZ.

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JW 1 hour ago
'I feel for the players': Jamie Joseph's reflection on falling short again

Some great leadership quality from Big Jim, he facilitated for large parts then put the responsibility on himself at the end drive the team forward in the last desperate minutes. He also filled in for Withy extremely well, adding real strength to the maul.


The Force have been playing very well this year indeed, and their stars did make a couple of key players, the main factor though is definitely what I reported in the previous article “

Gotta say I’m really enjoying the Highlanders desperation in the last 10 minutes of games, maybe it’s just because theyre having to throw the kitchen sink at it again. Another massive effort to hold the opposition out just like in the Blues game. I’m sure the coach’s will be wanting a little more composure though as the play seems to far more hap hazard (really just the type of footy I like watching) than the picture they bring at the beggining of games.

Again though they don’t have the refs to thank for anything, being down a man twenty more minutes than they should have been. Most importantly they were without one of they best attackers (not counting Tangitau’s early change) for the final push, with Nareki’s bin.

Again, I can see where this team is trying to go, I hope they can get their this year as they certainly have the game to be a top four team if they click. They are munch of misfits when you look at it objectively though, they probably have the worst cohesion score of any SRP team. A few more wins, maybe a come from behind upset may be the best theey can hope to acheive this year.

“. Like Jim I thought the defence stood up strongly for large parts, but they may just have some structural issues, where it’s just not paying off. They had Lawaqa on the wing all day, allowed the Force to make a dozen linebreaks, why? Both there attack and defence look a bit too fancy for me, why? Common Joseph, the youngest team with the least cohesion/most new guys, it look overly complicated.


I hope it clicks. Manson in particular looked to be trying far too hard when he came on, what’s been said in his ear? Stick to you lane son and don’t make any mistakes, don’t lose the game for your team. Should be a comfortable win next week against Drua if they keep there heads up and come back stronger. Lasaqa might be best to come off the bench, would keep Jim at 12 but I’d like Tele’a to come back to the side, though TUJ hasn’t been bad and style might suit Drua more. Hopefully Renton or someone with some size is at 8 or 6, Lasaqa appears to be more an 8 actually, similar to Sititi and I wouldn’t mind if he was groomed behind him and Sotutu. Lennox I thought could make a good halfback but isn’t ready, I’d hope Arscott, Fakatava, or Pledger could return to the side. Other than Drua theyve got Cheifs twice, though the home game is the last of the round/season so potentially a gimme if the Chiefs repeat previous years tactics. The Crusaders and Moana at home are also very doable. Those four wins could see them crash into the top 6 still.

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