You might have seen the Crusaders this year. They’ve been to a town near you. Actually, they’ve been to a town pretty much near everyone.
Nudging 100,000km in air and road miles during a five-month boys’ trip, they’re 80 good minutes away from concluding the Greatest New Zealand Sports Story Ever Told.
Hyperbole?
Try to think of another team in our sporting history that has had to play through as much adversity; whose players and coaches guiltily kiss their wives and children goodbye and hope like hell another “big one” doesn’t strike while they’re away; who have debunked all the accepted wisdom about playing in one of the world’s toughest rugby competitions without their home ground; who have kept on winning.
You could maybe point to the 1953-54 New Zealand cricket side in South Africa.
Teammates wept for Bob Blair as he walked from the tunnel on to Ellis Park just hours after learning his fiancee had died in the Tangiwai rail disaster, and felt physically sick to see the bandaged and bloodied Bert Sutcliffe take guard on a lethal pitch.
It was by comparison, however, a brief moment in time – and they lost, bravely but heavily.
The Crusaders have not lost very often – their record this year stands at 14-4 – and have a chance to notch their eighth Super rugby title while, in the words of towering lock Brad Thorn, “psychological warfare from Mother Nature” is waged against them.
Remarkable doesn’t come close to describing it.
This story, like most modern-day Canterbury tales, starts on Tuesday, 12.51pm, February 22.
“I was having lunch with Wyatt Crockett in Kilmore St, near the middle of town, when the earthquake hit,” says halfback Andy Ellis.
“We just braced ourselves against the wall of the cafe until it stopped and then went outside to see what was going on.
“The thing I remember is the dust, there was dust flying everywhere, and all the cracked windows. There were all these freaked-out people running around.”
Ellis tried to ring home, to his wife and 1-year-old daughter. The lines were down.
“It was a matter of jumping in your car and getting home as quickly as you could to check your immediate family was okay, then checking on the rest of your family.”
His actions were being repeated by Kieran Read, eating in another part of town, and by several other teammates and thousands of people across Christchurch.
In the following minutes, hours and days, the scale of the devastation to the city and loss of life would become apparent.
It left Crusaders chief executive Hamish Riach tiptoeing across a public relations highwire without a safety net. Yes, reconfiguring the season without a home
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