James O'Conner: Crusader on his first match on the team against the Blues

James O’Connor has hopped the ditch, leaving the Wallabies behind in favour of the red and black. 

His first match with the Crusaders was in the pre-season clash against the Blues in Kirwee – the Blues claiming the win 35:19. 

He joined Lesley Murdoch for a chat to recap the match. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great to get out of the regions, you know, like, yeah,
it was just cool, great vibe. You can see the
kids running around and smiling, and for me, it's beautiful
to say you're pulled on the Green Lake jump, but
you've had a hand so good. It was quick. Like again,
you can train as much as you want, but until
you actually get a proper d against you, they want
to hurt you, you don't really get a feel for it.
So I thought that was I thought there's some really

(00:21):
good staff, some things for us to work on, but
positive coming out of that. So we're just work on
our communication and connections and we're getting there. This work
could be done. But I saw enough there and a
couple of spilled opportunities and over like I said, I
could play the touch, but yeah, positive outcome. Well, I
think it's a different style of game, right, not that
there's there's nothing to lose, so you might push a

(00:42):
few more passes. We don't exactly have the combinations set yet,
and you know there's a mixture still missing quite a
few of the all Black guys as well, who will
have huge voices in the team to come back and
bolster that. But at the same time, We went in
with a game plan to play against the Blues how
we thought they would play, and they delivered what we
thought they would. Our physical upfront and they were head
some good lines. Took a lot out of that game.
So you know, it's a shape I've never played before.

(01:03):
I've been doing it for now for two months and
have some good communication with Jimmy Marshall before I came over,
and I'm loving the looks I'm getting and like the
detail and the options. Then it's just about me heading
the right guy. It's this time, just generally after halftime,
they seemed to be an uplift and Crusader's energy levels
in the third quarter. Ye okay, I don't think that

(01:24):
was me. That's more the Fords. I'm just telling them
what to do, do as I say and not as
I do. But yeah, yeah, like again, they had they
were quite dominant in the first half Forci in that
set piece, they just spored a bit of our ball.
So for me, like the message from myself was just
that simplicity. You know, we can get our looks and
we can play the ball, we can spin it, but
unless we're winning those that collision battle, we're not going

(01:45):
to be a team like the Blues, and I think
that's where our ford stepped up, and as well some
of our younger outside backs who came on really delivered.
You don't want to show your hand at everything yet,
but I mean, obviously the line out's a bit of
a walcom that's not my area. I don't really know.
I'm just warning the ball and we'll go from there.
But I think they got up a color. We stole three.
I think they might have stole five or whatnot. I've

(02:06):
thought our players off the line up were pretty good
our first two three phases. A few times they did well.
I sort of disrupt that third phase. Won't say anything,
but I felt like they were on. Then. Yeah, we'll
see how it's raffed in actual super games. That's our
first trial, our first head out. We've still got Highlanders
next week and we'll hone our craft. And again we're
not showing too much of our hand. We's rarely simplified

(02:27):
the line out, so it's pretty hard for the forwards
when you know there's maybe four or five options when
in a normal game we've got fifteen. So it wasn't
sort of much variety for us to move to, so
I guess once the Blues worked out sort of what
the three or four calls were, it makes it a
little bit easier. This pitch is awesome. It's fast and soft,
good for the old knees. Beautiful. I'm gonna say, how's
the puff puffs? All right? That's only like I've been

(02:50):
working hard in this preseason. I've said it before. It's
the quickest footy I've played, So that's I mean, we've
got a lot more speed in us if we can
just tidy up a couple areas, like we will work
on off sort of one one and a half second
rock speed in that preseason today is probably like three
second rock speed. So if we can get that a
little bit more efficient, be awesome to see what we
can do with the ball and then create more opportunities

(03:11):
for a kicking game as well. This is hot and
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