Rugby: Joseph urges big home effort

Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph during the Highlanders and Crusaders rugby match. Photo / Otago Daily Times

Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph threw down the gauntlet to his players as they left Cape Town on an exhausting 40-hour journey home and a match-up with the Crusaders this Saturday at Carisbrook.

In typical fashion, Joseph did not beat about the bush regarding the tough trip home and an even tougher assignment against Todd Blackadder's Crusaders this weekend. "That was always going to be a big one. And it will be a big ask for the team. But that's their job, that's what they have to do."

Watching his men bested in the physicality stakes especially at the breakdown did not make especially pleasant viewing for Joseph. "The Stormers fronted and played very well. But the way we went at the Stormers helped them too. It was a formidable defensive line but we made it easy for them. We are going to have to be better than that."

What did Joseph say at halftime at Newlands as his side trooped off 12-6 down? "The message was, we had to match their guys physically. We had done that in our previous three games but we didn't do that in this match."

Captain Jamie Mackintosh reckoned the journey home would not be too bad. "Mid-morning Saturday departure to Cape Town airport, 2-hour flight to Johannesburg, 2-3 hour transit then a 13-hour flight to Sydney. After that, unfortunately, when we get to Auckland we have another transit so will go to a hotel before the flight leaves for Dunedin early Monday morning."

And the in-form Crusaders after that? Mackintosh blew out his cheeks. "Well, we weren't good enough in this game but still showed a bit of heart and didn't give up out there.

"And it is going to be a pretty big motivating factor playing the big rock stars next week."

He said it would have been nice to head home with the double scalp of the Bulls and Stormers, the two teams that contested last season's Super 14 final. "It would have been pretty awesome to win both those games away from home; that was the big motivation for us. Unfortunately we weren't good enough on the night to do it."

Joseph will not have a great deal of time to work with his weary troops this week after the flight across the world. But the Highlanders will have to fix their precision of execution as a team and individual decision-making. Both were poor, not really there to the required level throughout a match dominated by penalty goals.

But the No1 priority for Joseph and Simon Culhane will be to rectify the ludicrous turnovers which wrecked any hope they had of continuity. They turned the ball over 10 times in the first 50 minutes alone and by the end were nudging 20, a crazy figure. No side has any chance of maintaining momentum and building pressure if it is giving away the ball with that regularity.

And even when they did manage to hold on to it, there was never the same dynamism, penetration and zip they had showed in dismantling the Bulls in Pretoria one week earlier. Too many passes were taken with the receiver standing still and only when veteran Tony Brown came on for Robbie Robinson was some snap and direction added to the Highlanders' play.

Even so, all their charges foundered on the rock of the Stormers' defence, the best in Super rugby last season and this. Their scrambling defence was of the highest order, much too clever and consistent for the labouring Highlanders.

Even so, the African trip was a success for Joseph's men, thanks to that phenomenal win at Loftus against the Bulls. Joseph will work his men hard to make sure Friday night in Cape Town will be seen in hindsight as a blip, and no more.