The Most Successful Team In The World - The Crusaders Dynasty
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2020 saw the commencement of the 25th season of Super Rugby. Widely touted as the toughest domestic competition on the planet, the tournament, as it transpires, was aptly named, having wowed the rugby world year after year with sublime exhibitions of the game, forged in a cauldron of speed, flair, skill and physicality.
Of the 25 years of Super Rugby, the Crusaders have been crowned champions a total of 10 times. Consideration of the fact that the competition in the tournament has never failed to yield itself as anything else but fierce, one particular adjective springs to mind regarding this achievement: remarkable.
Originally known as the Canterbury Crusaders, the team’s catchment area comprised the upper South Island region. Ironically, in Super Rugby’s inaugural year of 1996, the Crusaders finished stone last, managing only a brace of victories.
The 1997 season saw a change in coaching and captain roles, with Wayne Smith and Todd Blackadder supplanting Vance Stewart and Richard Loe respectively, catalysing a marked improvement with the Crusaders finishing the tournament in sixth position.
Leaping from strength to strength, the men from Christchurch were crowned champions in 1998, an extraordinary effort considering their record of the two previous years, and retained their grip on the trophy in 1999 and 2000 for a hat-trick run of victories.
Interestingly, they concluded the 2001 competition in 10th place before an unbeaten run in 2002 which carried on until the third round of 2003 when they were defeated 39-5 by the Blues, ending a 15 match winning streak. Richie McCaw later said of the loss:
“In some ways it was almost a relief. We'd finally been beaten, the run was over, so people could stop talking about it and we could get on with playing it week by week.”
The Crusaders have marched on since then, grabbing a further 6 titles (2005, 2006, 2008, 2017, 2018, 2019) for their current total of 10. To lend some perspective to this accomplishment, the second-highest number of titles lies with the Blues (also of New Zealand) and the Bulls of South Africa, with 3 apiece.
Their secret? Ex-All Black and current head coach Scott Robertson sheds some light:
“The expectation is that we play with a high skill level. We’ve had a lot of players that have come through who are multi-skilled, mindset: want to play. As coaches, we’ve put structures in place to do that. We just work really hard... and that comes with a massive expectation. The history is so strong that if you don’t win people are looking at you...”
“There’s succession planning. That’s part of the reason why Canterbury Crusaders are so strong and part of why the All Blacks are really strong; there’s huge continuity,” he added.
Cohesion, continuity and player retention, seem to be the foundations on which the Crusaders dynasty is built.
Continuity, as Robertson stresses, breeds trust amongst players as they learn about each other’s strengths, weaknesses and habits on the field of play.
This, coupled with systems and structures which emphasise the manifestation of the potential of not only the group, but of individuals as well, breeds a winning culture and, therefore, winners.
The 2020 season has, unfortunately, been cut short due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the Crusaders in an uncomfortable limbo just as they were on the hunt for their fourth successive Super Rugby title. They currently find themselves joint-second with the Brumbies on the overall standings, behind the Sharks who occupy first position, with the lion’s share of the tournament still to play.
Irrespective of what this year has in store, it is clear that the Crusaders franchise has dug a trench that opponents will always find difficult to cross. Their structures - intelligently designed to generate success - and ethos, which hitherto have rendered them the most successful rugby team in the world, seem set to stand them in good stead for the future.
