Rob Penney: 'We looked as though we were a bit flat'

A one-and-three start to the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season for Rob Penney and the Crusaders wasn’t on many people’s bingo cards, falling to their third loss this season, against the Blues at Eden Park.

The Blues burst out of the blocks in the round four clash, while the away side struggled to gain any sort of cohesion or momentum during the 80 minutes.

A couple of defensive system errors, that were noted post-match by Penney, really cost the Crusaders as All Blacks winger Caleb Clarke managed to run in a 50-minute hat-trick for the Blues.

“Well, we talked about that a bit, and that’s the last thing we want to do, he’s (Will Jordan) world class, and he makes a massive impact for any team he’s in,” Penney told reporters in Auckland.

“Look, we’ve got some talented players, and we were inexplicably error ridden tonight, and there wouldn’t be too many that could put their hand up and say it wasn’t me.

“And as I said, it’s probably down to that bit of that mental prep, potentially. But yeah, we need to take heat off Will,  you know, Will’s just an amazing talent and we want to make sure we can come here and play with freedom, not feel like he’s a critical piece.”

When asked about his overall thoughts on their performance, Penney was pretty straightforward with his response, explaining that his team were well off the pace.

“Really disappointing. We were messy, couldn’t get any rhythm, and looked as though we were a bit flat, didn’t bring any intensity, really.

“It’s a little bit of a credit to us, I guess, really, that we’re still in at halftime, given the amount of errors and the situation we were in, we hung in there, but the Blues on a night with the quality they’ve got they were just too good for us.

The Crusaders lost 24 turnovers to the Blues’ 16, a stat which Penney admits must be lower if they want any chance of winning games in Super Rugby Pacific.

“You’re about right, it’s ugly. It’s not the first time, you can see a lot of them were at times when he wasn’t a lot of defensive pressure on,” Penney told reporters at Eden Park.

“So we can’t blame, excess pressure. The boys are better than that so it’s hard to put your finger on when good players are making errors. The only thing you can come back to, I guess, is their application pre game.”