You tried so hard Auckland. You got so far. But in the end it didn’t even matter.
Despite the Blues playing their hearts out in Eden Park and giving the Crusaders their toughest competition all season they still got comfortably beaten by a Crusaders team that really is that good.
Richie Mo’unga put on an absolute masterclass leading the team to 7th victory in a row in Eden Park. He scythed his way through the defense, set up some beautiful tries and kicked 9 from 9 from the tee in easily his best game of the season.
Back when Richie and I went to school together I could never figure out how to tackle him but now I don’t feel so bad as half the international circuit doesn’t either. He truly is magical to watch with ball in hand and with the game on the line the Blues simply couldn’t stop him.
The Blues actually dominated possession and territory for most of the game but every time they lost it the Crusaders were clinical enough to punish them for it. Despite running with the ball almost 50 times fewer than the Blues the Crusaders beat just as many defenders and made almost as many metres.
We don’t need that much ball to score and even if our defence has to make almost twice as many tackles as the opposition(as it did on Sunday) our finishing is so deadly it just doesn’t even matter.
There’s a bye this week so no top tip from Jezza but if we played any other team in the world right now I wouldn’t bat an eye in picking Crusaders 13+.