In a question and answer session on The Roar on Friday afternoon I pointed to the fact that the Reds had defeated the Crusaders the last four times they had played.
They had the type of game, with good, hard-tackling forwards and small, very fast and skilful backs, that the tough, unrelenting Crusaders have found hard to defeat.
And so it proved on Saturday night. When the Crusaders were dominant in the first half, the Reds hustled and bustled and hit hard in defence, and came off their defensive lines very quickly (and occasionally, without being penalised), to such effect that the Crusaders made uncharacteristic mistakes.
Pressure creates these types of mistakes. It was this combination of defensive pressures with every player putting their bodies on the line.
Radike Samo’s effort to somehow get under Brad Thorn when he was planting the ball across the try line early in the second half was probably the turning point in the match.
A try and conversion would have taken the Crusaders into a healthy lead. This lead, in turn, might have been enough to get some more energy into the tired legs of the Crusaders as their 100,000 km journey to the Brisbane final began to take its toll.
Here is where the coaching staff came to the fore again. They had factored in the likelihood of the Crusaders running out of gas.
After all, both teams had suffered the same empty tank feeling in the round-robin match.
But this time, the Reds had had a week off during the finals and were playing at home. The Crusaders had flown to South Africa and back and had contested all three finals matches.
So the game plan for the Reds was to make the game as frenetic as possible.
Early on in the second half, for instance, the Reds had a penalty on the halfway mark. They immediately took a tap penalty rather than slowing the game down for a shot at goal.
The Crusaders were sucked into this type of game, too.
They lost their structures and at times played the headless chicken type of game that Quade Cooper with his tremendous speed, strength and uncanny passing skills can get away with.
But no other player in the world can hope to emulate Cooper in broken field play.
Then at the crucial time in the second half Liam Gill was brought on for Beau Robinson.
Gill is an even better fetcher than Robinson, although at 19 years he does not have the strength and body toughness to play a starting role over a long season.
The Crusaders could not match the energy and pace around the field that the Reds developed in the last quarter of the game.
And then the master stroke, in terms of coaching and play, was revealed. All season the Crusaders had had trouble with sharp snipes from fast halfbacks from set play and from rucks and mauls.
Will Genia scored a decisive try for the Reds from a darting run from a scrum in the first Reds-Crusaders match. He waited all game for a suitable opportunity to do the same thing again. Then 12 minutes from time he saw his chance.
He took it and raced away to rugby glory.
The coaching staff of the Reds has finished their work for the season. It would be a smart move by Robbie Deans to bring some of them into the Wallaby camp for the Rugby World Cup campaign.
This is not to denigrate the work of Deans himself.
A point that is not acknowledged by his (diminishing?) number of detractors is that he plucked Will Genia from the obscurity of a perennially losing Reds squad and hoisted him into the national side.
The real development in Cooper’s game, too, came when he became a Wallaby and was exposed to Deans’ coaching.
The argument for using some of the Reds coaching staff in the Rugby World Cup effort is that it is a tremendous undertaking to coach a side to win the tournament.
And a national coach in a World Cup year needs much more staff help than in an ordinary year.
Sir Clive Woodward had a lawyer on his staff in 2003 who saved the day when England played a short time in one of their matches with 16 men on the field.
As well as the usual suspects on the coaching staff, Wooodward also employed a visualisation expert who taught the players how to isolate opponents in their field of vision, and reduce the mass of bodies heaving around them to a comprehensible series of patterns they could interpret and play to.
This expert was hired by Jake White, along with the former Wallaby coach Eddie Jones, to help the Springboks win the 2003 Rugby World Cup, four years after Woodward’s win.
There will now be a great debate about how valuable the Reds’ Super Rugby win will be for the Wallabies chances of winning the World Cup.
In all the years that New Zealand teams won the Super Rugby tournament, they could not convert these wins into a World Cup title.
But the Bulls’ Super Rugby title victory in 2007 was the foundation for the Springboks winning the Rugby World Cup 2007.
More important than the history, I think, is the fact that the Reds’ style right now seems to have the measure on the Crusaders’ efforts to counter it.
The All Blacks play like the Crusaders and the Wallabies try to play like the Reds. Does this mean anything?
It makes for a tantalising month and more of discussions.
There is the consideration, too, that if the Rugby World Cup 2011 seedings work out, the Wallabies should play England in the semi-finals. England has had the wood on Australia in recent years.
Let the discussion and debate begin …
One final point about the 2011 Super Rugby final. This must be the last time it is refereed by a referee from one of the conferences competing in the final.
It was painful to see the New Zealand referee Bryce Lawrence going out of his way not to seem biased in front of a rabid Reds crowd and an even more rabid ground announcer.
Some of Corey Flynn’s lineout throws were ruled not straight when their deviation from the middle of the lineout appeared to be more imaginary than actual. And it was the inability of the Crusaders lineout to win its own ball that prevented the side from maintaining the pressure it needed to place on the Reds forwards.
In summary, then: A victory for the ages for the Reds. They played modern rugby at its combative best.
The victory could be gold for the Wallabies.
And, as a last thought, a probable wake-up call for the All Black coaches to devise ways of beating this brilliant and winning way of playing modern rugby.
Joseph
Guest
Hahaha yeah shite scrum agree but yet the scoreboard told a different story? Embarrassing how my fellow kiwis LOVE to clutch at straws.Henrys plan to rest his top players may haunt him come Sept as many clearly need the game-time from watching them in this game and heaven help Henry if a certain couple of players take a wee knock in some warm up games cause he has no plan B.
Joseph
Guest
"I don’t think anyone is questioning the qualities of this Reds team." OJ wasn't it your much informed Kiwi footy brain crowning these same players as muppets 12 months ago? Cooper especially? The most telling aspect that the AB's holding aloft the WC this Oct is not a fait accompli was watching an impotent Dan Carter behind a dominant front foot scrum. Bit of a worry dont you think? or maybe it was the travel? or the earthquake on their minds?
Adam
Guest
But the opposite has neer happened..
Joseph
Guest
Cooper and Genia shone behind a retreating pack - enough said!
Joseph
Guest
yeah OJ Cooper didnt create space for Davies or anyone outside him by merely being out there....hahaha you still knocking the inevitable OJ hahaha. Carter and by the looks McCaw are on the downward slide by their standards and Cooper well that boy is on the ascent as I have always maintained.
Jerry
Guest
It's hardly semantics Happychap - teams don't take those games seriously. I dunno why people need to over-egg the pudding. The Reds have beaten the Crusaders 3 times on the trot in matches that matter, including the final. They've proven they're the better team, why the need to try and exaggerate? A good comparison for me is the 3/4 playoff - I don't rate the 2003 win over the French as meaning anything at all, so when I consider NZ's record against France in WC's I consider it 2-1 in their favour. Except pre-season matches matter even less.
stillmatic1
Guest
which game were you watching?? apart from genia running around his mate after being clueless with what to do with the ball and scoring, what else did cooper or genia do?? and please dont spout off things that should come naturally to a pro footballer ie: kicking. fact is, the reds won (obviously) but how anyone can say it was convincing is beyond me. the reds had 2/3 opportunities and took them, the saders had many more and threw them away by knocking the ball on or not protecting it enough. guys running around like headless chooks and throwing 30m passes doesnt come across to me as particularly exciting. any kid can do that on the playground. congrats (with a massive grudge!!) to the reds, they took their chances all year and snuck home by the skin of their teeth, but remember that old chestnut about learning more from your losses than from your wins. the reds have not invented a new paradigm to win rugby games, they simply won the comp after a very long hiatus. it must have been good to get some cheap wins by playing the bottom 5 teams a total of 9 times hey!! the saders definitely showed how terrible quade and genia are when they are truly put under the pump, those core fundamentals would be a godsend in those situations come WC time, but alas, we just want to watch them play like school kids so it doesnt matter. and thank god bryce stayed away from the game, was he even on the field? throws all the oz conspiracy theories about non neutral refs out the window though, doesnt it? the WBs will not be any more or less dangerous to the Abs because of this game, fact is, no matter what, the Wbs always and forever have it in them to win each bledisloe. and thankfully the abs take them more seriously then us fans do.
King of the Gorgonites
Roar Guru
Yes very true. Time would b difficult. i can see no clear window of time in which it could be played that would suit both hemispheres. But it would be a good money maker and a good reward fo the best teams.
Coxinator
Guest
Just spent a few minutes reading the views above and what I don't get is the sour grapes. No the ref did not wreck the game. No the Crusaders did not deserve to win and were not dominant. Genia and Cooper may not have been at their best, but still they look a lot better than the Crusaders most of the time. This game is over and let the tests begin.
Jerry
Guest
Actually, I reckon there's something worse than both. People who take pleasure over another team losing when it's not even their team that's beaten them. "Will laugh like the proverbial drain when they fail again at the World Cup." Hi Uncle Bob.
cookee
Guest
regardless of reds coaching prowess this season ,it is clear to most that the crusaders tactics were dumb in their circumstances from the outset.not similar to all black resistance to change when plan A didnt work but slow from the outset;incredibly jetlagged neurons id suggest
cookee
Guest
crusaders tactics poor esp under circumstances,dimwitted really.
cookee
Guest
little credit should go to mooney cos he didnt rate him.barnes was his boy.
cookee
Guest
right oj ;a quiet game;poor kicking and all round average.reds coaches need medals for sure.
Derm
Roar Guru
Interesting KOTG - O'Neill may be just making sounds though. This has been talked about before many times, but it never seems to take off. Would be great to see it. Leaving aside where it takes place (toss of a coin or else a neutral ground) when should it take place is the critical question. Would need to be before either of the comps start again for the new season which would leave a window between end of May and October in NH. The S15 next year won't finish until August if I recall correctly so that really leaves September as the time to have it - or will that clash with the new Quad Nations?
dwc
Guest
Yes yes we are going to have acres of bluster and balderdash on this site right up to the RWC Final.....we will know more of the reality, after the two Bledisloe Cup clashes.There will be a massive difference between a tired Crusaders unit and the All Blacks A team, vs the Reds at home all rested and with 50,000 orcs screaming for their team.... as a Kiwi, quite happy the Saders lost as Henry now has some material to work with.....
Justin
Guest
Well done to the Reds, they deserved the title and no excuses from this Kiwi corner. Besides it can only be good for rugby as Oz have not won it for quite some time so they need a boost. The big question of course, will the Reds form translate to a strong Wallaby side. Answer, No! You only need to look at last year where the Boks had 2 teams in the final and finished last in the Trinations. So what does this mean then? Well the Wallabies may finish last in the Trinations and get knocked out early in the world cup. Truth is no one knows, the true litmus test will be the Wallabies playing the ABs at Eden park. If they win that match then the ABs will be certainly worried, but in saying that, I just cant see the Wallabies doing it at all.
jameswm
Guest
I watched with a mate and we were amazed at how flagrant the Crusaders' breaching of the laws was at times. Right in front of the ref, coming in the side, lying on the ground kicking the ball away from the half-back etc. It was incredible and audacious. I'd have penalised them off the park, as would some other refs.
Funk
Guest
I don't think there is a team in world rugby that underestimates the abs, home or away.
El Gamba
Guest
I think that he'd be the first to admit it as he is a harsh critic of himself. You are right, he made a couple of errors under pressure but I still think that there was plenty to like about his game. It certainly helped that Higginbotham and co had blinders and through their hard work saved a couple of turn-overs when he chose to run!