Basics can turn a season

Nemani Nadolo of the Crusaders. Photo / Getty Images

If the Crusaders want their season to progress and to feature at the top end of the table, a handful of individuals need to take greater responsibility for their performances - not just every now and again - but for the rest of the campaign.

It's one thing to be under pressure after a couple of poor performances, have a rocket put up you and play better. It's another to sustain that quality of performance week after week.

The Crusaders have been on-off, on-off for the last few years. They have been more on than off - particularly at the end of the season - and that has enabled them to make the playoffs.

But this year they are threatening to be more off than on and it looks to me that when they are off, it's a simple matter of not doing the basics.

I watched them play the Chiefs last week and they weren't doing any of the things I tell my club players to do. There was no one running on to the ball, no one playing what they saw in front of them and their performance was so flat.

In stark contrast, Daniel Carter missed touch on one occasion and Chiefs fullback Tom Marshall carried back hard and fed to Tim Nanai-Williams who put a burst of speed on and then passed to Liam Squire who hit the ball at pace. The difference was impossible not to see. The Crusaders, on the other hand, were all about shovelling the ball sideways. There was no dynamism or energy about their attack and, if their game plan is all about getting the ball to Nemani Nadolo, then he needs to work harder to get involved. He needs to find more of a work ethic or at least the players around him need to be working harder to encourage him to get off his wing and get his hands on the ball.

If the midfield are pushing the ball wide in the hope it will get to Nadolo and he'll do something, then it is a waste of his incredible size. He's such a big man the Crusaders have to bring him on to the ball. Even if he was just jogging into the line, he'd be hard to stop. Look at the way Sonny Bill Williams attacks the line at the Chiefs. He comes on fast and from deep and then is able to look for the offload. Maybe this is a bit unfair, but I have wondered whether Carter, Colin Slade and Tom Taylor have already said goodbye to the Crusaders.

All three are off to France after the World Cup and maybe they have mentally not found themselves there at times.