Fullback Israel Dagg showed with his long clearances that he is all but over his quadriceps injury - apart from a kick charged down in the final moments by Digby Ioane as his side defended a slim lead.
After that, there was little to cheer.
"We showed a fair amount of character but it's not what we want to take into next week,'' was the fairly accurate summary from hooker Corey Flynn.
His captain Kieran Read concurred. "I guess for us, we're just happy to scrape away with the win. We needed it to continue our momentum. The performance wasn't there, but I guess the character was,'' he said.
"It's never easy when you start like that. I guess the composure wasn't quite there. We were a little bit anxious, everyone was really trying a bit too hard to get into the game and against these guys. We just need to look at that because if we continue to do that in this competition you're probably not going to come up with results.''
"We just gave the Crusaders too much ball and let them off the hook a bit,'' was Reds captain James Horwill's response.
Robbie Fruean, so explosive and instrumental in last weekend's victory over the Waratahs in Sydney, made several errors on defence and his workrate was nowhere near where it needs to be to interest the All Blacks selectors.
There wasn't a hint of the intensity the Crusaders brought at this venue in the victory over the then-unbeaten Stormers three weeks ago, although they did well to cope with the second-half sinbinning of replacement loosehead prop Wyatt Crockett, who was penalised for not using his arms in a tackle on Will Genia.
Things went wrong even before kick-off, with lock Tom Donnelly ruled out after hurting his back in the warm-up. Sam Whitelock started instead, with Ross Kennedy coming on to the reserves bench.
Right from the kick-off the mistakes came. Halfback Andy Ellis had his attempted clearance disrupted and the Reds poured forward, their pressure rewarded with a try to hooker James Hanson before a minute was up.
The Crusaders battled back into the game through sheer doggedness. They couldn't rely on any fluency, their constant mistakes saw to that.
At halftime the Crusaders were behind on all of the statistics apart from the scoreboard and penalties conceded. Elsewhere the home side were second best. Possession, territory, breakdowns, missed tackles - the Reds had an advantage in nearly all aspects.
Although the home side led 6-5 at halftime, that was due mainly to the fact Mike Harris missed two relatively easy shots at goal, but the former North Harbour player redeemed himself after 44 minutes to give his side the lead.
Taylor grabbed the lead back for the Crusaders with a penalty of his own and then came what could have been a pivotal moment - Crockett's sinbinning.
However, although Harris kicked the resulting penalty and put his side back in front, the Crusaders hit back with one of their own through Taylor as the clock ticked down, the home side defending a 12-11 lead.
Home hopes were raised further when referee Bryce Lawrence awarded the Crusaders a penalty in front after Reds wing Rod Davies held on to the ball in a tackle.
Taylor kicked it to increase the buffer and the Crusaders held on for the win, ugly as it was.
Crusaders 15 (Tom Taylor 5 pens) bt Reds 11 (James Hanson try, Mike Harris 2 pens). HT: 6-5
