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The Crusaders and the Waratahs lined up before their big match on Friday night for a minute of silence. The ground announcer read out a long tribute to the 29 Pike River miners entombed in an explosion and to the dead (which included a board member of the Crusaders franchise) and the shattered of Christchurch.
I was reminded during this poignant ceremony of a phrase from Virgil my high school Latin teacher had often talked about: “lacrimae rerum,” the tears of things.
The meaning of the phrase is that throughout our lives, even in moments when there are great successes and triumphs, there will be times of great sadness.
Events will often threaten to overwhelm us but while conceding the sadness of these events we have to live our way through them.
Ernest Hemingway’s old fishing man summed up this stoic attitude the best: “Man can be defeated but not destroyed.”
It was a perfect night for rugby. There was a bit of a breeze to add some complications for kickers aiming at accuracy. A red glowing sky was slowly turning grey. Two top teams with a history of competitive and hard-played were going to go at each like prize fighters.
But for one of the teams, the Crusaders, there was more than a game of rugby to be played. After the devastation of the earthquake, Christchurch’s iconic rugby team was playing for the very concept of a viable future for their city.
A city is more than a composite of its people and its buildings. A great city is about how it defines itself, how it identifies itself with other cities, how it present itself to its own people and to the rest of the world.
Christchurch has, from the 1850s when it was founded as a cathedral city, always seen itself as a habitat for hard workers and winners, in business, farming, the arts and sport.
Just a handful of names will do to make the point about Christchurch: Australasia won its first Davis Cup with a scion from Melbourne, Norman Brookes and a gilded young man from Christchurch, Anthony Wilding, the first antipodean to win the men’s singles at Wimbledon.
One of the inner city tourists spots that was destroyed in the earthquake was the first laboratory of Sir Ernest Rutherford, a former student from Canterbury University and one of the scientists credited with “splitting the atom.”
Among the first arrivals in Christchurch was a member of the Deans family. A later member “scored” the famous try at Cardiff which, if awarded, might have given victory to the 1905 All Blacks over Wales.
Later, two other Deans’, one of them Robbie Deans, played for the All Blacks and the family contribution to Canterbury rugby is commemorated in a stand being named after the family at the new stadium, which has suffered enough damage to take it out of play for most of the Super Rugby tournament.
Many people in New Zealand have been wondering whether the city has any future. The attitude of the majority of people in Christchurch seemed to be before the match, the Crusaders will show everyone that we are going to survive, and ultimately flourish once more.
Before the match there was a lot of commentary about the likelihood of the Crusaders being so energised by emotion that they would overwhelm the Waratahs.
I believed at the time that this was a misreading of the essential qualities that has made the Crusaders one of the great rugby sides around the world in the professional era.
It is the absence of emotionalism and an excess of pragmatism that has been the team’s driving force. My feeling was that if the players allowed the understandable emotionalism of the event to get to them, they’d be reasonably easy picking for the Waratahs.
Apparently, in their first training run the players could not do anything right. Their minds were (understandably) on other matters. The second training run according to their coach Todd Blackadder was almost perfect in its precision and execution.
For the first 20 minutes, the Crusaders seemed to be in their first training run mode. They were far too emotional, rushing things, pushing passes and playing with too much frenzy and not enough intelligence.
Sonny Bill Williams made four unforced passing errors in his first four touches. The last of these errors led to another error by Daniel Carter. The Waratahs turned a 5m scrum, after a couple of phases, into a well-worked try by Tom Carter.
Then the Waratahs fell apart. Tatafu Polota-Nau, a devastating runner, tackler and off-load (his pass created created Carter’s try) had to leave the field with a damaged knee.
The Waratahs scrum collapsed when he left the field. And the Crusaders spent the rest of the match scrumming the Waratahs into the turf winning turnovers and penalties.
Daniel Halangahu missed four shots at goal, none of them difficult. Carter kicked six out of six. As both sides scored three tries each, Carter’s dead-eyed kicking provided the winning margin in points for his side.
Outside centre Rob Horne, starved with attacking ball by the plodder Carter, made a series of massive tackles to keep the Crusaders onslaught at bay. But when he went off, the only two tacklers in the side were now on the sidelines.
The Waratahs were forced to confront 183 tackle situations in the match. They missed 29 tackles. Many of these misses were by Halangahu.
Quade Cooper now has a rival for the worst, or most ineffective tackler in Super Rugby. At least Cooper banged over most of his kicks to give the Reds their victory over the player-power Brumbies.
Halangahu’s card after this performance should be marked: “Never to start again for the Waratahs.”
The irony in all of this is that the Waratahs coach Chris Hickey had identified Williams as the weak defensive backline player for the Crusaders. After he got over his nerves (presumably) Williams proceeded to play the role of chief executioner with his trade-mark flick passes and then a storming run to the try line.,
Williams was complemented by Robbie Fruean whose intercept pass from a convoluted Waratahs backline trick movement started his team’s point surge. Fruean, who is big and chunky, proved impossible for tackle for many of the Waratahs.
Even before the Crusaders began their points rampage, they were winning the battle of the break-downs. Matt Todd, the substitute for Richie McCaw, totally out-played Phil Waugh. I wonder if it is a good thing for the team for Waugh to playing on with his current arm injury.
The Crusaders will get better when they get back to their ruthless, pragmatic play. So the Brumbies could be in for a tough match on Friday night.
The Waratahs have been given a wake-up call. They have to improve their scrum. Why Benn Robinson is not a starter defies belief, in my view.
The loose forwards have to be more accurate and assertive in the collisions. Berrick Barnes will be back (thank goodness) which should steady things a bit in the backline.
They need to drop Carter to the bench and find someone, anyone (but not Halangahu) with a bit of zip to play inside centre.
The Waratahs will be back. I expect them to be the top Australian side in the tournament.
As for the Crusaders, they have used a rugby match to redeem the future for their shattered city. Whether they can continue to play their remorselessly efficient rugby while where they live and train is in such chaos remains, in my view, an open question.
Whatever happens for the rest of their season, though, they can say with pride and truth that they won the match their community demanded they win.