Planet Rugby Forum

I just watched the game although I knew the result. Fair play to the Lions, better team on the day but like the Blues game, either team could have won. Some points that have probably been made but I CBA reading the entire thread:

-Crusaders should've taken the points, this is the B&I Lions, not the King or Sunwolves
-Crusaders played below average, yes a lot of it is down to the opposition but they made mistakes they wouldn't normally make. Possibly overawed by the occasion, some young lads
-No ABs in the Crusaders 6-14 and this game showed why
-Havili is a good fullback but a mediocre 12. Crotty was a huge loss. Very glad SBW is in fine form
-Reffing of the scrum is up for debate but good from an AB perspective that we looked strong
-More worried about Farrell at 10 than Sexton
-Lions line speed and defence in general was good but must be slightly concerned abut their lack of try-scoring. 2 in 3 games is poor against what in theory should be weak defence, or so our northern friends love to tell us

Overall the game was fairly dull, both sides made too many mistakes and I don't buy that low-scoring games are more tense. As long as the game is in the balance for the full 80 then it's tense.

jdogscoop wrote:

booji boy wrote:

Fat Old Git wrote:It was an odd game from the Crusaders. And please don't read this as taking anything away from the Lions performance, but they seemed dazzled by the occasion right from the kick off when they muffed a fairly easy regulation restart to put themselves under pressure. They then spent the rest of the match playing catch up when there really wasn't much in the score and a bit of patience was required. It played right into the Lions hands who capitalized on it well and applied even more pressure.

Crusaders are usually quite a patient team happy to hold onto the ball until they can force an error or work a gap. But last night they seemed to kick everything away if the failed to make progress immediately. And with the Lions rush defence working extremely well that was pretty much every time. There was no real effort to negate it by using the pick and go to draw in some defenders before trying to go wide.

I think we missed Crotty and Read's leadership more than we missed their skill.

But hopefully they will learn from it.

I think they were simply overawed trying desperately to match the dazzling three try performance of the Blues and froze like rabbits in the headlights.

I think there's been enough smug posts from Blues supporters for me to point out this was a much stronger Lions side which would have buried your bunch of underachieving showponies.

Victories over touring British and Irish Lions teams:

Blues 1
Crusaders 0

booji boy wrote:

jdogscoop wrote:

booji boy wrote:

Fat Old Git wrote:It was an odd game from the Crusaders. And please don't read this as taking anything away from the Lions performance, but they seemed dazzled by the occasion right from the kick off when they muffed a fairly easy regulation restart to put themselves under pressure. They then spent the rest of the match playing catch up when there really wasn't much in the score and a bit of patience was required. It played right into the Lions hands who capitalized on it well and applied even more pressure.

Crusaders are usually quite a patient team happy to hold onto the ball until they can force an error or work a gap. But last night they seemed to kick everything away if the failed to make progress immediately. And with the Lions rush defence working extremely well that was pretty much every time. There was no real effort to negate it by using the pick and go to draw in some defenders before trying to go wide.

I think we missed Crotty and Read's leadership more than we missed their skill.

But hopefully they will learn from it.

I think they were simply overawed trying desperately to match the dazzling three try performance of the Blues and froze like rabbits in the headlights.

I think there's been enough smug posts from Blues supporters for me to point out this was a much stronger Lions side which would have buried your bunch of underachieving showponies.

Victories over touring International teams:

Blues 1/2
Crusaders 0/2
Chiefs 1/1

I'm sure those victories will give you comfort heading into the super rugby finals.

Murdoch wrote:

booji boy wrote:

jdogscoop wrote:

booji boy wrote:

Fat Old Git wrote:It was an odd game from the Crusaders. And please don't read this as taking anything away from the Lions performance, but they seemed dazzled by the occasion right from the kick off when they muffed a fairly easy regulation restart to put themselves under pressure. They then spent the rest of the match playing catch up when there really wasn't much in the score and a bit of patience was required. It played right into the Lions hands who capitalized on it well and applied even more pressure.

Crusaders are usually quite a patient team happy to hold onto the ball until they can force an error or work a gap. But last night they seemed to kick everything away if the failed to make progress immediately. And with the Lions rush defence working extremely well that was pretty much every time. There was no real effort to negate it by using the pick and go to draw in some defenders before trying to go wide.

I think we missed Crotty and Read's leadership more than we missed their skill.

But hopefully they will learn from it.

I think they were simply overawed trying desperately to match the dazzling three try performance of the Blues and froze like rabbits in the headlights.

I think there's been enough smug posts from Blues supporters for me to point out this was a much stronger Lions side which would have buried your bunch of underachieving showponies.

Victories over touring International teams:

Blues 1/2
Crusaders 0/2
Chiefs 1/1

Typical fkn Aucklander.