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2014 Super Rugby: Crusaders v Stormers (Round 4)

Wow... MASSIVE case of choking from the Stormers. Were the better team for most of the match, but stupidly tried to soak up time in a maul with 10 to go and then ****ed the whole thing up and then paid the penalty.

Kinda feel bad for them, but it was their own fault - extraordinarily stupid play by the Stormers in the end. Just incredibly dumb rugby.
 
Will be very interesting seeing how the game between the Stormers and the Chiefs goes next week.
 
Crusaders hold on to win 14-13. Not sure the best side won....
 
Crusaders very lucky and totally unconvincing to get this win. Stormers made some terrible decisions and errors near the end though.
 
Whew.

Gotta say that the Stormers probably deserved the win...the Crusaders just squeaked by.



das
 
Shattered but signs are good in lots of areas perhaps we can get something out of this horror tour after all.
 
Not to bad a.game. You gotta feel for the Stormers

Not a bad game in the last 15-20 minutes. The first half was a bit of a yawn. I liked how at one point there Justin Marshall was more interested in the little push-n-shove off to the side than he was in the game. :)


das
 
Wow... MASSIVE case of choking from the Stormers. Were the better team for most of the match, but stupidly tried to soak up time in a maul with 10 to go and then ****ed the whole thing up and then paid the penalty.

Kinda feel bad for them, but it was their own fault - extraordinarily stupid play by the Stormers in the end. Just incredibly dumb rugby.
Lol crack up post.

Not a bad game in the last 15-20 minutes. The first half was a bit of a yawn. I liked how at one point there Justin Marshall was more interested in the little push-n-shove off to the side than he was in the game. :)


das
Yeah u could hear Justin gettin into the biff it was that boring. Lol at the end of the game he says 'what a fantastic game'
 
I'm pleased to see Kieran Fonotia has made the bench for the Crusaders ... I'll be interested to see if he can carry his Tasman ITM cup form into Super Rugby ... hopefully he gets a run at some stage

... also good to see Taufua on the bench, he should add some go forward off the bench

... well I guess he went okay then :) , hopefully he'll get more game time from here on in
 
Not a bad game in the last 15-20 minutes. The first half was a bit of a yawn. I liked how at one point there Justin Marshall was more interested in the little push-n-shove off to the side than he was in the game. :)


das
Personally I enjoyed this game far more than the Reds v Cheetahs game yesterday with 8 tries, but poor defense and errors throughout. I guess it's what you take out of the game. Horrible to lose like that but honestly at least Stormers look something like the team they have been in previous season (more two seasons ago) I'm still not seeing an abundance of flair but if we can nail down our basic game plan with the set-piece and defensive emphasis we will at least be hard to beat this season.
Haters gonna hate about Jean de Villiers as I've seen no evidence of this aged centre carried by the Springboks the media likes to talk about. De Allende continues his good form but as solid as he is and a good ball carrier I think he has more x-factor to give fairly solid performance from everyone defensively. From a purely intellectual stand point I'm reasonably happy with the loss and the bp. Could have really used the win psychologically though as this tour isn't going to have any easy games.
 
Very proud of my boys, pity Taute had a brain fart or we could have bagged this game.
 
Yeah u could hear Justin gettin into the biff it was that boring. Lol at the end of the game he says 'what a fantastic game'

I suppose rugby's like sex - it's only the ending that matters. ;)

Personally I enjoyed this game far more than the Reds v Cheetahs game yesterday with 8 tries, but poor defense and errors throughout. I guess it's what you take out of the game. Horrible to lose like that but honestly at least Stormers look something like the team they have been in previous season (more two seasons ago) I'm still not seeing an abundance of flair but if we can nail down our basic game plan with the set-piece and defensive emphasis we will at least be hard to beat this season.

Early days yet. Hopefully BOTH teams develop a bit of flair.

As far as this game vs. the Reds/Cheetahs...I dunno. While I understand that 'messy' games with tons of tries and errors are often a reflection of poor defense and/or discipline, they do make for an exciting watch. I suppose, however, that they can also be quite frustrating for fans looking for good form. Me? It really all depends. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for a free-for-all. :)



das
 
What happened to Dominic Bird? He was announced in Crusaders' lineup but he was on the bench...
 
What happened to Dominic Bird? He was announced in Crusaders' lineup but he was on the bench...

Luke Romano was starting, they went with their 2 AB locks

Yeah Crusaders should consider themselves very lucky to win, they are looking really clueless this year, the Stormers deserved a victory.

de Villiers and Burger were just fantastic.

However my Chiefs will account for them next week :)
 
Crusaders damned lucky to get out of this with the log points. I don't think they really deserved to win
 
Personally I enjoyed this game far more than the Reds v Cheetahs game yesterday with 8 tries, but poor defense and errors throughout. I guess it's what you take out of the game. Horrible to lose like that but honestly at least Stormers look something like the team they have been in previous season (more two seasons ago) I'm still not seeing an abundance of flair but if we can nail down our basic game plan with the set-piece and defensive emphasis we will at least be hard to beat this season.
Haters gonna hate about Jean de Villiers as I've seen no evidence of this aged centre carried by the Springboks the media likes to talk about. De Allende continues his good form but as solid as he is and a good ball carrier I think he has more x-factor to give fairly solid performance from everyone defensively. From a purely intellectual stand point I'm reasonably happy with the loss and the bp. Could have really used the win psychologically though as this tour isn't going to have any easy games.

I didn't see the Cheetahs vs Reds match so can't comment on it, but I have to say this match was rather boring in my opinion. I felt the low scoring in this match was not necessarily due to fantastic defense, but rather woeful attack (especially by the Crusaders). Don't get me wrong, I thought the Stormers defended well, but even if they hadn't the Crusaders wouldn't have scored many more tries given how poor their attack was. Both sides also made a large number of errors - kicking the ball out on the full, not finding touch from penalties, dropping simple passes - most of these weren't caused by any pressure from the opposition, but rather were unforced. The fact it was a tight match kept it interesting until the end, but I overall I felt the quality of rugby on display was rather poor.

Anyways.... not that many positives for the Crusaders (apart from getting the 4 points). Theie lineout was not as reliable as usual, while the scrum was a bit hit & miss. Read tried hard but wasn't as effective as he can be, while Matt Todd was probably the pick of the forwards. Luke Whitelock had a very accurate game at 6 - he made all his tackles and was good in the lineout - but he still struggles to make much of an impact with ball in hand. He does have good handling skills and seems to be used far more as a passing option than a running option at the moment (he passed the ball far more than he ran it, which is rather unusual for a forward...).

Heinz passing was a step up from Ellis's, but his decision making is pretty average, and he does muck around at the back of the breakdown a bit too much. It was nice to see him make that big break though just before he went off. Tom Taylor had a very mixed game. He still struggles to get the backline going, and made a few errors with ball in hand. However he did make a couple of key defensive plays (including a brilliant try saving cover tackle with a couple of minutes to go), and kicked the key goal near the end. Crotty was rock solid as he always is, while Lee-Lo was a bit better than last week, but was pretty quiet. The outside backs were all pretty quiet, but all probably had their best games of the season (which says more about how poor they have been so far than how good they were in this match!).

The Crusaders obviously need to change something against the Rebels next week. George Whitelock should probably return and replace his brother Luke at 6, though I would love to see Taufua given a shot there. The backline is where the major changes need to happen though. Ellis should be back starting at halfback, and I think they should give Slade a shot at 10. He is still pretty inconsistent, but if he can run hard at the line he could give the Crusaders the momentum in the backs they need (they may look at bringing back Bleyendaal too, which wouldn't be a bad idea either). Tom Taylor needs to be playing at 12 (as that is his best position in my opinion), with Crotty at 13. Dagg should be back at fullback, and I would go with McNicholl and whoever out of Guildford and Tuitavake is fit (if both are fit I would give Guildford at shot). Nadolo can't be too far away from being available, but I would use him as impact player from the bench rather than starting him (at the beginning at least).
 
They need to put Dagg back to fullback, Guildford needs to come back, he may be the wildcard they need.

Matt Todd is looking good.

Dunno what there answer for 10 is but I hope they find it soon.
 
I didn't see the Cheetahs vs Reds match so can't comment on it, but I have to say this match was rather boring in my opinion. I felt the low scoring in this match was not necessarily due to fantastic defense, but rather woeful attack (especially by the Crusaders). Don't get me wrong, I thought the Stormers defended well, but even if they hadn't the Crusaders wouldn't have scored many more tries given how poor their attack was. Both sides also made a large number of errors - kicking the ball out on the full, not finding touch from penalties, dropping simple passes - most of these weren't caused by any pressure from the opposition, but rather were unforced. The fact it was a tight match kept it interesting until the end, but I overall I felt the quality of rugby on display was rather poor.

Anyways.... not that many positives for the Crusaders (apart from getting the 4 points). Theie lineout was not as reliable as usual, while the scrum was a bit hit & miss. Read tried hard but wasn't as effective as he can be, while Matt Todd was probably the pick of the forwards. Luke Whitelock had a very accurate game at 6 - he made all his tackles and was good in the lineout - but he still struggles to make much of an impact with ball in hand. He does have good handling skills and seems to be used far more as a passing option than a running option at the moment (he passed the ball far more than he ran it, which is rather unusual for a forward...).

Heinz passing was a step up from Ellis's, but his decision making is pretty average, and he does muck around at the back of the breakdown a bit too much. It was nice to see him make that big break though just before he went off. Tom Taylor had a very mixed game. He still struggles to get the backline going, and made a few errors with ball in hand. However he did make a couple of key defensive plays (including a brilliant try saving cover tackle with a couple of minutes to go), and kicked the key goal near the end. Crotty was rock solid as he always is, while Lee-Lo was a bit better than last week, but was pretty quiet. The outside backs were all pretty quiet, but all probably had their best games of the season (which says more about how poor they have been so far than how good they were in this match!).

The Crusaders obviously need to change something against the Rebels next week. George Whitelock should probably return and replace his brother Luke at 6, though I would love to see Taufua given a shot there. The backline is where the major changes need to happen though. Ellis should be back starting at halfback, and I think they should give Slade a shot at 10. He is still pretty inconsistent, but if he can run hard at the line he could give the Crusaders the momentum in the backs they need (they may look at bringing back Bleyendaal too, which wouldn't be a bad idea either). Tom Taylor needs to be playing at 12 (as that is his best position in my opinion), with Crotty at 13. Dagg should be back at fullback, and I would go with McNicholl and whoever out of Guildford and Tuitavake is fit (if both are fit I would give Guildford at shot). Nadolo can't be too far away from being available, but I would use him as impact player from the bench rather than starting him (at the beginning at least).

I finally got a chance to watch this match (as the coverage was delayed by a day here in Canada), and I have to disagree with your reasoning regarding the "woeful attack" rather than the good defense (of both teams), being the reason for the closeness of the result ... both sides made over 100 tackles, and the stormer made 135 ... there were a number of try saving tackles, with a few of them, right on the try line ... I will concede that some of the option taking wasn't that clever however, notably, Read going for the line himself, when they had the overlap in the first half, and Jaco Taute not passing to his wing, when they had an overlap in the second half.

I also disagree with the "hit and miss" remark about the Crusaders scrum, it was definitely more "hit" than "miss", particularly in the first half, and probably only started to wane a bit when the front row was replaced in the second half ... I'm not sure how the absence of Corey Flynn, due to his eye socket injury, will effect them going forward, but the scrum looked pretty solid to me ... the lineouts weren't that flash, but you have to give credit to De Koch Steenkamp for competing and winning a few against the throw, up until this game, Sam Whitelock had been winning a few against the throw himself.

The other area of concern is the number of turn overs conceded ... hopefully they will be able to sort this out, if the crusaders can get a regular starting 6,7 and 8, I agree that George W is probably a better option at 6 than his brother Luke, so if George has recovered from injury, I'd put him in ... I'd leave Taufua on the bench, and bring him on a bit earlier as an impact player.

I probably saw enough to suggest that "normal business will resume" for the Crusaders, as the errors look to be lessening, and the continuity seems to be better this week ... I probably would keep Taylor at 10, Crotty at 12, and start Fonotia at 13 against the Rebels. The Crusaders seem to base their play/play better, when they have a strong, straight running outside Centre, who can break the line, and the fact that Crotty and Fonotia have an established combination when they were playing for Brighton doesn't hurt either ... I think Dagg (who I would start back at Fullback) would get more opportunities from this combination (if you started Slade off the bench, the backline could be reshuffled if necessary)

I'm not sure who I would start on the wings ... Guildford and Nadalo should both be available, as they both started for the development side this weekend, and are both injury free, and I believe that Tuitavake hamstring injury? isn't too far away from putting him in contention also.

... I'd probably, start Guildford as he has the experience and can break the line (although he isn't a great long term solution)

Other than that, the only other change is a forced one, as a result of injury, as Willie Heinz is out for a few weeks, Any Ellis would start, with Mitchell Drummond on the bench
 
I finally got a chance to watch this match (as the coverage was delayed by a day here in Canada), and I have to disagree with your reasoning regarding the "woeful attack" rather than the good defense (of both teams), being the reason for the closeness of the result ... both sides made over 100 tackles, and the stormer made 135 ... there were a number of try saving tackles, with a few of them, right on the try line ... I will concede that some of the option taking wasn't that clever however, notably, Read going for the line himself, when they had the overlap in the first half, and Jaco Taute not passing to his wing, when they had an overlap in the second half.

I don't think the number of tackles alone tell us a lot about how good (or otherwise) the attack (or defense) was. For example in the Reds 43-33 victory over the Cheetahs the sides combined to make 240 tackles - exactly the same number as in the Crusaders vs Stormers match. Amazingly there were almost exactly the same number of missed tackles in both matches too (28 in the Crusaders match, 27 in the Reds match). These results can probably be interpreted several ways - you could suggest that the defense in the Cheetahs vs Stormers match was just as good as in the Crusaders vs Reds match (but the scoreline would suggest otherwise!). The difference between the two matches was the number of actual linebreaks,as there were 3 times as many linebreaks in the Reds match. While the Crusaders and the Stormers players were breaking the odd tackle they weren't running very directly (the Crusaders in particular), so few of there broken tackles resulted in linebreaks. In addition when they did break the line (or get over the advantage line by breaking a tackle) the ball recycling was very slow, which meant the opposition defense was able to be re-set. It was somewhat telling in my opinion that the Crusaders try was scored directly after a breakdown where the ball wasn't overly well protected at the base, forcing Ellis to deliver the ball quickly to the backs, catching the Stormers on the back-foot.

Don't get me wrong: I think both sides defended well (and there some excellent cover defense from both sides), but the poor attack made defense a lot easier.

I hate to say it, but I actually agree with one of Justin Marshall recent articles about the Crusaders. He suggests that they seem so completely locked into a structured game that they can't seem to take the opportunities that are offered to them. At every breakdown they seem to deliberately slow down the ball delivery so they can setup their backs (or forwards). All this does is allow the opposition backline to realign and get set to smash the Crusaders behind the advantage line. Given the Crusaders lack powerful ball runners they really need to get fast ball so they exploit a defense that is not set. I just hope we see the Crusader play with slightly more freedom next week. I'm certainly not suggesting that they abandon all structure (ala the Highlanders 2013...), but rather they look to play what is in front of them, rather than rigidly stick to a structure regardless of the situation.

I also disagree with the "hit and miss" remark about the Crusaders scrum, it was definitely more "hit" than "miss", particularly in the first half, and probably only started to wane a bit when the front row was replaced in the second half ... I'm not sure how the absence of Corey Flynn, due to his eye socket injury, will effect them going forward, but the scrum looked pretty solid to me ... the lineouts weren't that flash, but you have to give credit to De Koch Steenkamp for competing and winning a few against the throw, up until this game, Sam Whitelock had been winning a few against the throw himself.

I concede I was probably a bit unfair on the Crusaders scrum calling it 'hit & miss'. They had the dominant scrum for the 1st 30-odd minutes, I was just a little disappointed that this dominance faded pretty quickly (I thought the scrums were pretty even in the 2nd half), and that they gave away a few too many unnecessary penalties and free-kicks (for technical infringements). When on-form I think the Crusaders have the best scrum in the competition, and I'd like to see them using the scrum as a real weapon (apart from against the Highlanders.... they should take it easy when they play them :D).

The other area of concern is the number of turn overs conceded ... hopefully they will be able to sort this out, if the crusaders can get a regular starting 6,7 and 8, I agree that George W is probably a better option at 6 than his brother Luke, so if George has recovered from injury, I'd put him in ... I'd leave Taufua on the bench, and bring him on a bit earlier as an impact player.

I agree that George Whitelock should be starting at 6. The only reason I suggested Taufua at 6 is because starting is probably the only way he will get on the field for the Crusaders - he spent 80 minutes against the Stormers sitting on the bench.

I probably saw enough to suggest that "normal business will resume" for the Crusaders, as the errors look to be lessening, and the continuity seems to be better this week ... I probably would keep Taylor at 10, Crotty at 12, and start Fonotia at 13 against the Rebels. The Crusaders seem to base their play/play better, when they have a strong, straight running outside Centre, who can break the line, and the fact that Crotty and Fonotia have an established combination when they were playing for Brighton doesn't hurt either ... I think Dagg (who I would start back at Fullback) would get more opportunities from this combination (if you started Slade off the bench, the backline could be reshuffled if necessary)

I'm not sure who I would start on the wings ... Guildford and Nadalo should both be available, as they both started for the development side this weekend, and are both injury free, and I believe that Tuitavake hamstring injury? isn't too far away from putting him in contention also.

... I'd probably, start Guildford as he has the experience and can break the line (although he isn't a great long term solution)

Other than that, the only other change is a forced one, as a result of injury, as Willie Heinz is out for a few weeks, Any Ellis would start, with Mitchell Drummond on the bench

I'm not sure I've seen enough to suggest "normal business will resume" yet. They scrapped though with a victory over a rather ordinary Stormers side (a side that lost by 25 to the Lions a couple of weeks ago!). However I'm pretty confident that normal business will resume soon or later. Simply because it always does with the Crusaders. They have far too much experience and talent in their ranks not to sort themselves out. Hopefully they can get a good win over the Rebels in the weekend (though they have had issues with them in the past), as they certainly don't want to go into the bye with only a single win.

I'm not convinced about Fonotia at this level. He is certainly big and strong, but he isn't overly dynamic, and is rather predictable. However I can certainly see your reasoning for including him, and I do think he could help straighten the Crusaders attack somewhat (as it is very lateral at times). He scored a try with his only touch of the ball on Saturday, so you couldn't have really asked for much more than that!
 
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