After a tough start, we think our season is back on track after our win over the Waratahs in Sydney on Saturday.
Hopefully the players will have turned a mental corner with that win. It was tough and hard-fought at times but we finally showed our attacking capabilities with two great tries to Kieran Read and Leon MacDonald.
The younger guys were spot on in terms of their performance. Ryan Crotty and Colin Slade in particular impressed me.
After our great first-up win over the Chiefs at AMI Stadium we went off the boil and lost matches to the Brumbies, Hurricanes and Highlanders before drawing to the Force.
But the good thing is all games were very close. Daryl, Mark and I were confident a good performance and victory were just around the corner.
Now we’re looking forward to playing the Stormers at AMI Stadium on Saturday night.
This season the Stormers have been in some tough battles. They lost narrowly to the Sharks at home in round one but then bounced back to beat the Reds in a close one. Two narrow losses against the Blues and Bulls followed before they thrashed the Lions two weeks ago.
Last week they had a bye so they will be well rested and I know they will be very keen to get their tour of New Zealand and Australia off to a good start tonight.
The Crusaders have also been in a few battles so far. We’ve lost a few players to injury – including Corey Flynn, Leon MacDonald, Richie McCaw, Jared Payne and Casey Laulala (to mention just a few) – but we’ll never use that as an excuse.
The younger guys in the squad have proven they can step up and take their opportunities and I’m expecting that to continue.
South African teams are tough. They are big blokes who do the basics very well and I’ve seen a lot of improvement in their play this season. The Bulls (who we play here next Friday) and the Sharks are flying high and it seems they’re making better use of the size and talent of their players.
This is a tough competition. Every match is a hard one – physically and mentally. We’ll have our ups and downs and it’s how we react to them that will shape our season.
We’ll encounter a few surprises along the way, but we’re pretty confident that we’ll provide the opposition with a few surprises of our own!
Todd Blackadder
Crusaders Head Coach