Crusaders' challenge to maintain intensity

OPINION: The Crusaders enjoyed a very good win over the Chiefs in Hamilton last weekend – now the challenge is to follow that up against the Lions at AMI Stadium on Saturday.

That was an excellent Chiefs side and I thought our players did an extremely good job on the pitch – not only in terms of their performance but how they adapted to the conditions in the second half when it began raining heavily.

In truth that performance began early last week. The preparation has been outstanding for the last couple of weeks and we've reaped the rewards with good wins over the Blues and Chiefs.

The strategies that we've prepared for each opponent have been spot on and the players take a lot of ownership of that.

Also the recovery of the players has been good. They've looked after their bodies and the enthusiasm has been growing as a result.

Now we just have to really work to forget about last week's performance. That's where the real test is – playing a team which is coming to the end of a tough Australasian tour and hasn't picked up the results that it would have liked.

The Lions are a better side than the one that lost heavily against the Waratahs in Sydney last weekend and they will be pushing hard for a good performance. If we did go out there on Saturday and didn't perform then we would let ourselves down. We are starting to see some really good crowds come back to AMI Stadium and we know we disappointed our fans in Brisbane with that loss to the Reds so we don't want that to happen again.

Our match against the Lions kicks off at a family-friendly time of 5.30pm. It's a great opportunity for families to get to the game and afterwards run on to the field to meet the players.

When I see that happen after our home matches I feel really good about the game. It's definitely something special that we have in Christchurch.

Last week some players and I did a fundraising event for the Child Cancer Foundation Canterbury-West Coast division at Gary Cockram Hyundai. The foundation is one of our official charities and it was great to help out during their appeal week.

It is such a worthwhile cause and also recognises the impact that cancer has on mums, dads, siblings and the wider family.

It really is a privilege for me to be in this role and to have people look up to us. The players, team management and I are happy to help out in any way we can.

Congratulations to halfback Willi Heinz, who played his first game for the Crusaders against the Chiefs. He is Crusader No146.

Also, well done to Dan Carter for surpassing Andrew Mehrtens on the all-time Super rugby pointscorers list during that match.

Dan is now second behind Stirling Mortlock.

A last word on the actions of the Sunday Star Times recently in attempting to expose lapses in stadium security ahead of next year's Rugby World Cup. I don't want to give it any more publicity apart from saying that this paper relies on rugby to help sell copies and it was a very negative thing to do.

Rugby has been working really hard to improve itself – the game is better to watch this season and there are real efforts being made to reconnect to fans.

In no way is security at a Super 14 match any where near that of a Rugby World Cup match.

It was a strange decision on the newspaper's part – let's hope that's the end of it.

- © Fairfax NZ News