Is this the beginning of the end of the Crusaders?

Calling a downturn in the fortunes of the Crusaders is about as safe as calling the end of the US dollar, but after watching the Blues notch up a very rare win in Canterbury at the weekend, I am willing to go part of the way out on a limb.

Combined with what I have seen in other games, I had a distinct feeling of the baton being pinched from the hand by the men from Auckland and surrounds. Or was it dropped?

Make no mistake, the Crusaders will not go gently into the dark night. I don’t think the Australian franchises will get much joy in their encounters, and Auckland only just snuck home.

This is a great club (sorry, franchise) and if you were an aspiring New Zealand rugby player – or, as Pablo Matera shows, even an established foreign international – there is only one place you should want to go to further your game. However, this was a match that underlined that years of losing provincial stalwarts to the northern hemisphere are starting to have an impact.

In many ways, as well as the Blues played to win, the match seemed to be as much about issues in the red and black and beyond.

The Blues were still showing many signs of the bad old Blues – unforced errors, lapses in concentration, strange decisions and stars managing to be both brilliant and awful by turns. The articles in the New Zealand Herald on the 2004 Carlos Spencer magic in the equivalent game seemed to have gone to the head of Beauden Barrett, who managed to have two kicks out of hand charged down in the first half, and there were also some poor passes. But then there was some dazzling footwork and the trademark acceleration that sucked in two good defenders to free up the moderately frightening Dalton Papalii for the first Blues try.

Stephen Perofeta also added a bewildering mix of the sublime and the ridiculous. I could almost see Carlos, with his ability to infuriate and inspire awe in turns.

(Photo by Peter Meecham/Getty Images)

Rieko Ioane also showed the curate’s egg at No. 13 – nice Easter spirit, don’t you think? The first Crusaders try owes a lot to Ioane making a bad defensive call to bite in, dragging Alex Telea in and leaving the outstanding Will Jordan an easy run in to score. It wasn’t the only bad defensive read by Ioane in the first half, but then he made up for one egregious error by using his pace to turn and catch his man.

In fairness to Ioane, he isn’t the first and won’t be the last outside centre to be caught out by a quick, precise insertion of the fullback into the line, and No. 13 is the hardest defensive position. However, I’m not a fan of wingers moving into the centres. I know that Ioanae played in the centres as a schoolboy, but while it’s better than having no experience, even in New Zealand it doesn’t equate to seniors experience.

Watch someone like Jack Goodhue or Anton Lienert Brown and you won’t see them make as many wrong calls. I want to make clear that Ioane is a fine rugby player and a pretty useful No. 13, but this is not his best position. Better rugby minds than mine disagree apparently.

The Blues also managed to nod off at the start of the second half, letting the Crusaders back into the game before the generally excellent Scott Barrett managed to reprise his 2019 red card effort. He is a terrific player and plays the game hard but without evident malice. However, the red was a clear one, even before the recent sensitivities – apparently brain damage, early dementia and death are thought to be bad public relations for the game.

The Blues, the side dressed in the colours of the large city near the Bombay Hills that cannot be given its true name, also played some terrific rugby, and a place really needs to be found in the All Blacks for Dalton Papalii, despite there being room for argument about whether he fades in and out of games a bit. Ofa Tu’ungafasi also deserved the praise lavished on him by the commentators – and isn’t it good to listen to people who have a pretty decent grasp of the game, even if they seem to share the disease of maulitis. The work of Finlay Christie and Luke Romano also impressed me.

What also has to be said is the Crusaders looked to be a bit thin on the talent and experience sides. The hollowing out of New Zealand rugby is less about the All Blacks, who take sabbaticals or who leave for Europe, and more about the loss of the types of players who played 10 to 15 years for their province, perhaps with a few All Blacks jerseys thrown in, and who provided a consistent level of expertise and mentoring and an example for younger players.

Although no Crusader embarrassed the jersey – let alone the glory of the franchise – I thought that for all the brilliance at Nos. 6 and 8 and Nos. 1, 2 and 3, the forwards looked a little short of the classic models. The loss of the estimable Joe Moody rally hurt. Pedants might say the red card hurt more.

I have been watching carefully for signs of some depth to replace the best lock pairing I have ever seen – Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock – and while there were some promising signs in this match, they seem a bit on the sawn-off side for the job, and if you think good lifting can substitute entirely for three to five centimetres in height, think again.

Lock is such an important position in the game today, and while there aren’t any poor ones getting about, there aren’t any obvious like-for-like replacements for the Heroes of Telemark 2015, and this position and No. 6 have been difficult for New Zealand in recent years. The cover at No. 6 is starting to look better at least, with both sides showing some promising players in the Nos. 6 and 8 positions.

Good as the Blues were in large patches of the game, Crusaders of past eras would have beaten them, because it used to be that you could make perhaps half a dozen mistakes against them and hope to win, whereas now you can get away with a lot more. The passing of the baton does look to be happening, with losses to the Chiefs and the Blues highlighting the way the franchise is just holding on through a handful of fantastic players, the IP of the franchise that can lift the quality of others and the culture of dogged, never say die, all of which was exemplified in the final desperate surge to the line as the game ended. Yet the failure of that surge also is the reason I will take the great risk of calling the end of an era.

Worryingly, if the Blues are the answer, it might be a slightly disturbing question. Still, it was great entertainment, although it would have been even better if there had been a pushover try and at least a few more off the rolling maul. Come on, give in to it – it’s like a tide, you know you want to love it.