Why the All Blacks don't play anything like the Crusaders is beyond comprehension

I’m assuming we all saw the same thing on Saturday night?

One team looking to play skillful, high-tempo rugby and the other just doing whatever it takes to win.

In that regard, the enterprising Chiefs didn’t look dissimilar to All Blacks sides of recent vintage, with the Crusaders resembling Ireland or France.

You can whinge about refereeing decisions during Saturday’s Super Rugby Pacific final and you can argue that the Chiefs didn’t get the rub of the green.

But you also have to face the reality that the “good’’ guys don’t always win, in rugby matches of consequence.

Again, to go back to the top, I think we all recognise what happened in Hamilton on Saturday.

What I don’t get, though, is why All Blacks sides struggle to play like the Crusaders have for season after season.

I mean there are Crusaders in the All Blacks, after all. Guys who are masters at piling pressure on opponents and paring back game plans to suit the winner-takes-all circumstances of knockout footy.

How is it then that we increasingly look at the All Blacks as having a soft underbelly and of being unable to prevail when it really matters?

Is it coaching? Is it players? Will it all change when Scott Robertson eventually takes charge?

I watched Saturday night’s final and lamented Richie Mo’unga’s imminent three-year departure. I looked at his composure and ability to execute and couldn’t help thinking we simply don’t have another first five-eighths capable of delivering under pressure.

And yet, most of us would agree Mo’unga has never really been able to do for the All Blacks what he has so often done for the Crusaders.

Beyond whatever Ian Foster has or hasn’t told Mo’unga to do – during his many years as All Blacks assistant, then head coach – I come back to Beauden Barrett.

Now I’ve written often of my admiration for Barrett. Of the disservice I believe was done to him by the All Blacks and my belief that he should be an automatic choice at first-five.

I now think I was wrong. That I put too much store in Barrett’s performances in 2015, 2016 and 2017 and that his presence in the All Blacks’ squad has stifled Mo’unga’s development.

I still harbour a view that Barrett can be the player he once was, with New Zealand Warriors playmaker Shaun Johnson as an example.

I see parallels between Barrett and Johnson and think not all hope in the former is lost.

But it doesn’t change the fact that – in the Crusaders – we have the blueprint for sustained success and – in Mo’unga – a proven on-field driver of that success.

Only Mo’unga’s future lies elsewhere, beyond this season, and the All Blacks don’t play anything like the Crusaders do.

If that kind of rugby wasn’t in our DNA, then that wouldn’t bother so much.

But it is and many folk would have watched the Super Rugby Pacific final firm in the knowledge that the Crusaders would prevail.

That for all the brilliance of the Chiefs’ back-three and the unpredictability of Damian McKenzie, that the utterly predictable, completely reliable Crusaders would find a way to win.

I don’t know what the All Blacks will achieve this year, although I have to say I don’t look at the playing and coaching personnel and feel unbridled confidence.

But I do know – having seen the Crusaders do it for years and years and years – that there is a way to win games when it matters.

That substance is more valuable than style and that, actually, fans just want the All Blacks to win by whatever means necessary.