“If you watch me coach, you would suggest I'm not coaching, probably, because you wouldn't see me speak on the training field.”

Sir Wayne Smith has an unexpected way of describing his rugby playing career: “I was an All Black, but I wasn't a great of the game. I was a player who wanted to play for great teams and had limited ability.”

In the Whitelock household, rugby boots were passed one brother to the next. The boots had long lives, and they needed looking after.

In 1998, rather than asking the Crusaders to look to the past as a source of inspiration, Wayne Smith started telling stories about who they wanted to be.

When Robbie managed the Crusaders, he’d keep an eye on culture by seeking feedback from people the team encountered.

The surprisingly simple criteria Robbie Deans uses to select players.

Five-time Super Rugby title-winning coach Robbie Deans knows a thing or two about selecting players — AND how to build a high-performing team.

For legendary All Black Sam Whitelock, leadership comes down to the details.

One of those details is that the coach or captain should always be facing into the sun.

This train-of-thought was from back in Robbie Deans’ playing days, before professionalism, when he was playing for Canterbury. “You just chase that opportunity to succeed. Chase the solution. Shut everything else out. Chase the solution.”

Smithy did something really important: He turned it over to the players to decide how they were going to translate their theme and values into behaviour.

Worried about your new hire’s culture fit? You may be surprised.

When Norm Berryman joined the Crusaders in ‘98, people thought they’d gotten selection wrong.

In 2011, Wayne Smith was assistant coach for the All Blacks. At a pre-World Cup camp, and he had an interaction with Ali Williams that he’ll never forget.

Should I share tips that could put me out of a job?

Senior Crusaders face this question all the time: ‘How much should I help the rookie?’

Here’s Sam Whitelock’s take…

What do you do when you’re at the bottom of the table?

More precisely, what do you do when you’re at the bottom of the table after winning seven back-to-back championships?

Champion coach Robbie Deans has a habit of throwing new players in the deep end, to make sure they know what’s expected of them. But he doesn’t just do it on the rugby field: he does it on a river, in a jet boat.

During our Crusaders Leadership Programme Kieran Read was asked “what tools do you use, as the leader, when the team is under pressure and not performing at their best?”