Rob Penney admits Crusaders ‘weren’t good enough’ as defending champions suffer new low

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Perennial Super Rugby Pacific champions the Crusaders sank to an all-time low in the competition when they suffered a humiliating 37-15 defeat to the Western Force in Perth on Saturday.

The result means the two sides swap positions in the standings with the Force moving up to 11 position while the defending champions are rooted the bottom of the table.

With only six rounds left of this year’s Super Rugby Pacific campaign, the Christchurch-based outfit can ill afford another loss.

Woeful record

The Crusaders have lost seven out of their eight matches played this year with their only victory registered against the Chiefs in Round Six of the competition.

Despite his side’s poor form, Crusaders head coach Rob Penney is staying positive although he admits that their performance against the Force was just not good enough.

“The performance was probably as bad as we’ve had,” Penney told Newshub. “The discipline and the errors are two things that we should be able to control. The staff are working really, really well.

“There’s a lot of good stuff happening in behind the scenes, and I know it doesn’t always appear that way when, we’ve had such a topsy turvy sort of performance and outcome.

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“But there’s probably three of those games on reflection and possibly four that we could easily have won.

“Yes, we’re one and seven. But it could have been slightly different. It’s not. It’s the reality.”

Penney admitted that the team’s woeful form is starting to take a toll on his playing squad which have several youngsters in its ranks due to several injuries to more experienced players.

“The suggestion you’re making around the pressure and confidence and all that, it obviously is affecting, I would suggest, some of our players in a negative way, which isn’t good,” he said.

“The boys are trying. Yes, potentially, those sorts of external elements create pressure moments inside young mens’ heads and I suspect there’s a bit of that.”

In Saturday’s clash with the Force, the Crusaders’ discipline let them down as they conceded a whopping 16 penalties and 20 errors made. Penney feels those statistics are damning and contibuted massively to their defeat.

‘Weren’t good enough’

“We weren’t good enough,” he added. “We would ourselves in positions to be threatening and either give a penalty away or make an error.

“Just far too many of those controllables that we weren’t able to control and we just keep releasing pressure.”

The Crusaders are set to host the Rebels in Christchurch on Friday and could be boosted by the return of All Blacks duo Scott Barrett and David Havili, who are close to full fitness after suffering finger and calf injuries respectively.