The difference between the Hurricanes and the Crusaders
It is clear the Hurricanes are frustrated after losing to the Crusaders 24-21, but the target of their frustrations, the referees, is typical of losing teams.
Professional rugby is a high stakes game where emotions run high, and when things don’t go your way, it is easy to look at everything that went against you in search of answers.
No one doubts that it must be frustrating to lose on a dodgy call after running an all-or-nothing gamble to try a lineout maul to win the game.
When you end up with nothing, the reaction is predictable. For captain Ardie Savea, who often puts everything into a game, it is a particularly hard pill to swallow.
To demand better of the officials is another thing entirely. Would it actually help the Hurricanes win more games if the referee was five to ten percent more accurate?
Because the question is, who is responsible for losing games of rugby at the end of day, the teams themselves or the referees? What do you believe?
If Savea demanded more of his teammates, coaches or the organisation instead, would that result in material improvements over time? The easy option is to point externally, the harder ask is to hold your peers accountable.
How many of them are just ‘paid to play rugby’ and how many of them are truly ‘professional rugby players’? The latter has nothing to do with getting compensated and everything to do with how you act and carry out your time in the quest to be the best.
We don’t know these answers, of course. Only the players and coaches inside the building do, but the best team in the Super Rugby competition likely has a group of players who are doing all the right things and more.
When has a champion team ever been ill-disciplined, unfocused, done the minimum level required or blamed others for the results. Never.
The Hurricanes aren’t a hopeless case by any means. They are a very competitive team that finished one point astray from the Chiefs and three points behind the Crusaders. They are the only team to have defeated the Blues so far.
They are there or thereabouts, but marginally off the pace.
The great Bill Walsh, former San Fransisco 49ers coach in the NFL, believed the score took care of itself. If the right systems are in place, the game was already decided before the game.
For the Crusaders, it is clear they have had an advantage over their rivals over the last half decade with better systems up and down the organisation .
This starts from the development and recruitment of players right down to the weekly preparation for a game. The result is baked in already. They just go out and do the job. They aren’t surprised when they win, the score takes care of itself.
There can be times when the Crusaders do not get it right, but, by and large, they just win even when not playing their best game. They have a feedback loop that consistently shows them ‘if we do x, y, and z properly, this is what happens’.
This is with both short-term and long-term processes with the team and within the organisation. The Hurricanes have the same feedback loop at the moment, but with inverse outcomes.
Instead of looking inward to find out what is going wrong with x, y and z, their public leaders are starting to share their frustration outward, which is indicative of a team coming under pressure, desperate for results and looking to find blame.
It is clear that the Hurricanes as a wider organisation, do not have the best systems in place. All five New Zealand teams have good systems, but the question is, do they have the best? The answer would have to be no, based on first-hand evidence.
The long-term systems that they need to rely on – such as recruitment and development, the funnel of players that you develop into Super Rugby players – has not kept them as New Zealand’s best side after their 2016 championship. They have slipped to fourth based on this season’s results.
Many highly-rated prospects, often regarded as the top of their age-grade, have ended up with other teams. Others that have stayed haven’t really reached their potential.
Their second row has always been considered below-par when compared with, say, the Crusaders, who always seem to have All Black locks and front rows.
Taine Plumtree is now with the Blues and Naitoa Ah Kuoi is at the Chiefs, both of whom were schooled at Wellington College and locked down together in the second row of that school’s 1st XV five years ago.
Both were New Zealand Schools prospects. They both came through Hurricanes’ age-grade teams. Both are with other Super Rugby teams. If they were to become All Blacks in time, it would be prove to be a bad decision to let them leave.
For Plumtree, you couldn’t be more aligned with the club. His father was an assistant coach for years and was briefly the head coach. To lose a blue chip prospect tied so close to the franchise says something.
How about Folau Fakatava? Everyone knew Fakatava was the best schoolboy halfback in the country at Hastings Boys’, possibly the most exciting prospect in years.
Everyone knew TJ Perenara would eventually need to be replaced. Nevertheless, the Highlanders snapped Fakatava up to be the heir behind Aaron Smith. The Hurricanes’ halfback stocks have been short-term stop gaps since 2016 with no real long term planning for life post-Perenara.
Fakatava’s high school team had six New Zealand Schools representatives in 2017, and he would have been the seventh if he wasn’t injured.
This is a team, the Hastings Boys’ High School 1st XV, right in the Hurricanes’ backyard, in the Hawke’s Bay. Just one of those seven, loose forward Devan Flanders, is with the Hurricanes.
Four of them are with other Super Rugby Pacific teams: Lincoln McClutchie and Danny Toala are with Moana Pasifika, Kini Naholo is at the Crusaders, and, of course, Fakatava has signed with the Highlanders.
If these recruitment and development systems were theoretically 10 percent better, the Hurricanes might have had the extra points they needed against the Chiefs or Crusaders.
If the Hurricanes had scouted and kept Scott Barrett in the region, when Taranaki was still part of the franchise’s catchment area, he wouldn’t have sacked their lineout on Saturday afternoon.
The point is, the focus should be on continual improvement of all the systems that go into team building. Forget about the referees. The score will take care of itself if everything else is in place.
One team that has visibly changed its approach over the last few years is the Blues, who are having their best season after a breakthrough Super Rugby Trans-Tasman title last year.
The Blues region always has a surplus of talent having the biggest city and have never had a “need” to look around the country.
Retaining is always a challenge, but the Blues were never really that interested in looking beyond their borders. That has changed now, with the club scouring prospects nationally and taking them out of other regions.
If you want to be the best it is logical to seek out the best players available, regardless of where they are.
The signing of Roger Tuivasa-Sheck is the headline grabber, but the recruitment of players like Plumtree, Anton Segner, Sam Darry and Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens are just as critical.
Those latter four names are all recent New Zealand age-grade representatives from other regions who have bolstered the Blues’ depth in positional groups that are already well-stocked.
The Blues already have Dalton Papalii, Hoskins Sotutu and Akira Ioane, three capped All Blacks in the back row. Adding Segner, a former Crusaders U20 captain, and Plumtree, a hybrid option at lock or 6 into mix has built incredible depth and competition.
From the signings at the top end of the market in Beauden Barrett and Tuivasa-Sheck, to the other end in highly-rated, unproven prospects, the Blues have got it right at all levels to build a championship-calibre roster.
You hear about how the arrival of Tuivasa-Sheck and the professionalism he brings that has inspired the Blues’ younger players.
The arrival of Barrett a couple of seasons ago also had a similar impact. Those are gains that are compounding and taking the Blues in the right direction.
They are finally using their market power, with business connections and third-party sponsors, to lure talent. It was an advantage they have always had, but under-utilised. It is perhaps an edge in their new system.
If you have the best systems in place, across the board in all different areas, the results will come. The Blues are finding that those results are coming, but time will time if they can achieve sustained success like the Crusaders.
For the Hurricanes, better processes and systems across the board in due time will see them get the results they currently think they deserve. Every player getting 10 percent better will outweigh the impact of the referee being 10 percent more accurate.
Comments on RugbyPass
He is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
2 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to commentsMake what step up? Manie has a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck and changed the way the Springboks can play. He doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. The win record of the Boks with him in the team is tremendous. Sacha can be wonderful and I hope he has a very succesful Bok career, but comparing him to Manie in terms of the next Bok flyhalf is very strange. Manie is the incumbent (not the next) and doing pretty incredibly.
1 Go to comments00 😍 U
1 Go to commentsSabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.
2 Go to commentsJake White talks more sense than anything I've read in the last 5 years. Hope someone's listening.
9 Go to commentsThe Springboks tried going down the road of only picking home-based players and it was an unmitigated disaster in 2016 and 2017. Picking overseas-based players has been one of the main reason the Boks have done so well since 2018, not only because of the quality Rassie could call on, but because of the knowledge and experience those players brought into camp from England, France and Japan. With some of the big names playing abroad it also gave younger players in SA the chance to break through at franchise level. Would we have seen the emergence of a Ruan Nortje if RG and Lood were still at the Bulls? Not so sure. I understand why Jake would want to block players leaving since his job depends on good results but it’s an approach that would take Bok rugby back to the bad old days and no South African wants to see that.
9 Go to commentsExeter were thumped by 38 points. And they only had to hop on a train.
39 Go to commentsI am De Groot.
1 Go to commentsHad hoped you might write an article on this game, Nick. It’s a good one. Things have not gone as smoothly for ROG since beating Leinster last year at the Aviva in the CC final. LAR had the Top 14 Final won till Raymond Rhule missed a simple tackle on the excellent Ntamack, and Toulouse reaped the rewards of just staying in the fight till the death. Then the disruption of the RWC this season. LAR have not handled that well, but they were not alone, and we saw Pau heading the Top 14 table at one stage early season. I would think one of the reasons for the poor showing would have to be that the younger players coming through, and the more mature amongst the group outside the top 25/30, are not as strong as would be hoped for. I note that Romain Sazy retired at the end of last season. He had been with LAR since 2010, and was thus one of their foundation players when they were promoted to Top 14. Records show he ended up with 336 games played with LAR. That is some experience, some rock in the team. He has been replaced for the most part by Ultan Dillane. At 30, Dillane is not young, but given the chances, he may be a fair enough replacement for Sazy. But that won’be for more than a few years. I honestly know little of the pathways into the LAR setup from within France. I did read somewhere a couple of years ago that on the way up to Top 14, the club very successfully picked up players from the academies of other French teams who were not offered places by those teams. These guys were often great signings…can’t find the article right now, so can’t name any….but the Tadgh Beirne type players. So all in all, it will be interesting to see where the replacements for all the older players come from. Only Lleyd’s and Rhule from SA currently, both backs. So maybe a few SA forwards ?? By contrast, Leinster have a pretty clear line of good players coming through in the majority of positions. Props maybe a weak spot ? And they are very fleet footed and shrewd in appointing very good coaches. Or maybe it is also true that very good coaches do very well in the Leinster setup. So, Nick, I would fully concurr that “On the evidence of Saturday’s semi-final between the two clubs, the rebuild in the Bay of Biscay is going to take longer than it is on the east coast of Ireland”
11 Go to commentsWhat was the excuse for the other knockout blowouts then? Does the result not prove the Saints were just so much better? Wise call to put your eggs in one basket when you’ve got 2 comps simultaneously finishing.
39 Go to commentsReally hope Kuruvoli and his partner rock the Canes.
1 Go to commentsI wonder what impact Samson has had on their attack, as the team seems less prone to trundle it up the middle, take the tackle and then trundle it up again. I lost faith in the coach last year as the Rebelss looked like a 2nd/3rd rate South African team. I also disliked Gordon standing back, often ignored as the forward battle went on and on. Maybe its our Aussie way of not getting off our A***’s until the enemy is at the gate.
86 Go to commentsThanks for the write up. Great to see the Rebs winning, I am a little interested in how they will go against the remaining kiwi teams, I think they’ve only played Hurricanes and Highlanders but how great to see these players performing!! I also see Parling has a job beyond June 30! A good move by RA? Also how do you fix the Rebels previously scratchy defence?
86 Go to commentsbe smart - go black
14 Go to commentsNext week the Crusaders hopefully have Scott Barrett back. Will be great to have the captain back. Hopefully he will be the All Black captain as well.
12 Go to comments