Some of the South African teams in this year’s Rebel Sport Super 14 have turned to what is regarded as an old-fashioned tactic – the rolling maul.
The Bulls and the Sharks have shown that the maul can be very effective and hard to stop once momentum is up.
We haven’t seen a lot of it lately so there’s a bit of a novelty factor there too I suppose but the key thing is to stop the maul at its source straight away – don’t let it gain momentum.
The South Africans have been using the maul straight from the lineout quite effectively and one of the best ways to negate it is putting pressure on the lineout.
We didn’t see much of it when playing the Sharks or Lions in our home matches, but it could be a different story when the Crusaders play the Stormers and Bulls in South Africa in late April and early May.
Speaking of South African teams, they definitely are worse off than the Australasian teams in terms of the travel schedule.
For instance, the Lions played the Hurricanes, Brumbies, Waratahs, Crusaders and Highlanders on their recent tour – that’s a long time to be on the road, especially when you’re not winning.
The Sharks also recently completed their tour to Australia and New Zealand but picked up two victories at the end against the Highlanders and Hurricanes. Sometimes when you are on the road it brings you closer together but it’s a long time to be away from your families.
Next year it will change somewhat. There will be 15 teams and each country will play in their own conference. For instance, the Crusaders will play the Blues, Chiefs, Hurricanes and Highlanders home and away in one season, with the top team making the play-offs.
The second team in the New Zealand conference could make the play-offs too but it’s down to points and there will be no guarantees.
That is going to be very hard on the New Zealand teams as we are all so physical and tend to save our best performances for the derby matches.
I’m pretty happy with the way the Crusaders are travelling at the moment. We’ve just had a bye weekend which was a great opportunity for the guys to recharge their batteries.
Most of the players went away for the weekend. I went to Lake Daniels near Springs Junction on a fishing trip but didn’t catch anything apart from a blister.
Still, it was great getting away for a few days out of cell phone reception.
We’ve lost Corey Flynn to a fractured ankle bone for a few weeks which is a real shame.
Well all feel for him – he has had a terrible time with injuries over the past few years. Corey is such a great contributor to our team too but I know he’ll be back better than ever.
We have called Dan Perrin into our squad and it’s great to see Dan back with the Crusaders after he played five matches for us last season.
The focus now for us are the Hurricanes on Friday night and they will be really desperate for a win. They beat us last year at AMI Stadium and have such dangerous ball runners. Our defence will have to be outstanding.
We’re looking forward to the challenge – and the fact that we’ll be returning to AMI Stadium next week to play the Waratahs. We are looking to get a record crowd in for that match but more on that next week.