Crusaders 2020
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Tom Sanders turns 26 early next season. He's been playing provincial Rugby since 2014 and has been a Super Rugby player since 2016. The time is right for him to step up and show that he belongs at this level. It's now or never. With Blackadder gone, I think it'll be between Sanders and Barrett for the no.6 jersey. Dunshea is quite quick for a tall man, but I'm not convinced he has the mobility to play as a flanker at SR level.
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@Chris said in Crusaders 2020:
Canterbury u/19 Lock Sam Darry is training with the crusaders in pre-season,
some big raps on Sam. At 2.03 Cm he has height.Good to hear, will keep an eye out for him into the future. It's great to have locks who are 2 metre plus in our system. He might struggle to get any gametime this season as lock is one position where we have strong depth. Even with Whitelock missing for Super Rugby season 2020 we still have four high quality locks in Barrett, Romano, Strange and Dunshea.
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@Higgins I agree. Also, it's more indicative of who are considered back-ups of squad members in case of injury, if you look at who's still training with the squad once the ABs have returned from their break, this Monday.
Geoff Cridge and Sam Darry (and other non-squad locks) will only see game time if more than one of the locks in the squad (Barrett, Strange, Romano, Dunshea; maybe Grace) suffers an injury.
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@Chris Sam Gilbert told me he was training before Xmas. He’s only there to make up the numbers until sevu and bridge come back. They do it so they can have live trainings , enough people in the drills etc.
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@chchfanatic said in Crusaders 2020:
@Chris Sam Gilbert told me he was training before Xmas. He’s only there to make up the numbers until sevu and bridge come back. They do it so they can have live trainings , enough people in the drills etc.
That makes lots of sense. Also allows the Super Rugby coaches to get a look at some of these developing players and gets these players familiar with the patterns/calls used by the Crusaders, making it easier for them if/when they do make the step up to SR level.
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@KiwiMurph said in Crusaders 2020:
@Cantab79 All nz franchises do this stuff.
Yes, and they need to given the high injury rate in SR and the relatively small squads. In recent years the Crusaders have always had to bring in players from outside their squad to cover for injury. Sevu Reece in 2019 is a example of our important these players can be in NZ Super Rugby.
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Spoke to a good friend who is close to Scott Robertson last night , apparently Robertson said the process was a complete waste of his time, he got the impression the NZRFU had already well and truly made their minds up.
One particular comment to a question got Scott Robertson’s back up big time and quite frankly I thought as an organisation we were a lot better than this..
He was asked a question in and around his philosophy and the processes he would bring to the All Black coaching role ..after explaining what he would bring to the table, Graham Henry barked across the table in a patronising voice ,“well that’s a real Crusaders way of doing things..!.
Are you bloody kidding me..?, the smug former All Black coach who should never have been on this panel shows his true colours ..I thought we had moved on from this sort of behaviour..
Well Mr Henry the Crusaders way of doing things seemed to work really well under Robertson’s watch 3 x years in a row and he did not have the luxury of having McCaw and Carter..
Just rather confirms to me once again how farcical this process has been..Can you imagine how stupid they are going to look if Robertson leads the Saders to another title and Foster has a shocker in his first dig..!
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@Steven-Harris said in Crusaders 2020:
Can you imagine how stupid they are going to look if Robertson leads the Saders to another title and Foster has a shocker in his first dig..!
Before a ball has been kicked nationally or internationally, the absolute reverse of this is still an option that could happen.
Even as a Chiefs and Waikato fan, I wasn't enthusiastic about Fozzie getting the role and would have been happy for Robertson to get it. However, I will give him a chance to show he has the goods before I cry foul!
We've see this before.... just after the 2007 WC where Henry got the nod again. That didn't go too bad.
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@Steven-Harris Doesn't sound very promising.
I guess one good thing (for now anyway) is that if Foster has a shocker, they've hopefully got Razor in the background as an alternative - where if Razor had got the job, Fozzie would likely have found himself a job in Europe.
I guess Fozzie has been given his chance and I'll reserve a fair bit of judgement until the results start coming in.
After all, I thought Razor was a poor choice as Crusaders'coach and would be a flop.
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@Hooroo listen I have no issue if they had just announced Foster as the new coach even before they had gone to the RWC..it’s just the farcical amateurish behaviour of this process that pisses me off..!
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@Steven-Harris said in Crusaders 2020:
@Hooroo listen I have no issue if they had just announced Foster as the new coach even before they had gone to the RWC..it’s just the farcical amateurish behaviour of this process that pisses me off..!
Yeah, even though it is from his side of the story (who knows how embellished it is) it does sound predetermined from most sources.
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@Steven-Harris said in Crusaders 2020:
Graham Henry barked across the table in a patronising voice ,“well that’s a real Crusaders way of doing things..!.
Just speculating here. I wonder if that is misread, when I interview people I'll often challenge then with off the cuff questions or statements, could this have been Henry trying to see if Robertson could articulate why the Crusaders way was best or to figure out if he had any other options up his sleeve if the Crusaders way fails.
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@Hooroo said in Crusaders 2020:
@Steven-Harris said in Crusaders 2020:
Can you imagine how stupid they are going to look if Robertson leads the Saders to another title and Foster has a shocker in his first dig..!
Before a ball has been kicked nationally or internationally, the absolute reverse of this is still an option that could happen.
Even as a Chiefs and Waikato fan, I wasn't enthusiastic about Fozzie getting the role and would have been happy for Robertson to get it. However, I will give him a chance to show he has the goods before I cry foul!
We've see this before.... just after the 2007 WC where Henry got the nod again. That didn't go too bad.
We will see how Foster goes but I don't have much confidence not just the time he was in charge of the Chiefs.
It felt like there was a decline in AB performances in the last couple of years they looked stale.And we maybe will have more of the same with Foster leading the way.As I remember Hansen saying foster had a big input the last couple of years making him a better coach.I still haven't seen evidence of that as yet. -
@Chris said in Crusaders 2020:
@Hooroo said in Crusaders 2020:
@Steven-Harris said in Crusaders 2020:
Can you imagine how stupid they are going to look if Robertson leads the Saders to another title and Foster has a shocker in his first dig..!
Before a ball has been kicked nationally or internationally, the absolute reverse of this is still an option that could happen.
Even as a Chiefs and Waikato fan, I wasn't enthusiastic about Fozzie getting the role and would have been happy for Robertson to get it. However, I will give him a chance to show he has the goods before I cry foul!
We've see this before.... just after the 2007 WC where Henry got the nod again. That didn't go too bad.
We will see how Foster goes but I don't have much confidence not just the time he was in charge of the Chiefs.
It felt like there was a decline in AB performances in the last couple of years they looked stale.And we maybe will have more of the same with Foster leading the way.As I remember Hansen saying foster had a big input the last couple of years making him a better coach.I still haven't seen evidence of that as yet.Hansen was in charge so he wears the results of the past 4 years. Who knows whether Fozzie would have done the same as Hansen.
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@Chris even if Hansen was letting Fozzie do more, I expect there was plenty of stuff that Fozzie knew how Hansen liked it being done, so more than likely while he was leading something, he was probably still doing it how his boss wanted it?
I interviewed for a job several years back with a guy who had coached Super rugby, and he said when he went in he had to be prepared, they fired plenty of questions at him, challenged his responses, often in ways that seemed like they were to provoke - was my first interview in 10 years and the least fun one I had ever been in, didnt get the job!
As above, I am willing to give Fozzie a shot, my leash of chances will extend only so far though
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@taniwharugby said in Crusaders 2020:
my leash of chances will extend only so far though
my pitchfork is already sharpened, my torch well oiled. both are by the front door. I've been building a fat effigy as well.
I'll be ready for some old fashioned mob justice after the first squad naming, i won't even need to see us play.
