After the set-back against the Cheetahs and the big injury toll from their trip to South Africa there was no mistaking the importance of the Crusaders' hard-fought 25-19 win against the Chief at McLean Park on Saturday.
A home game in Napier, just a couple of days since returning to Christchurch and no Sonny Bill Williams, Andy Ellis, Israel Dagg, Sean Maitland, Adam Whitelock and Khan Fotuali'i, it was little wonder Crusaders captain Richie McCaw described the victory as 'huge'.
"After what happened last week we had to get back to a performance we were happy with," McCaw said.
"It still won't be perfect when you look at it but to get home and get that under our belt we can push on from here. It was pretty important that we got going again tonight."
The scores were locked 6-6 at half-time after Daniel Carter and Stephen Donald traded penalties. But the Crusaders shut down the Chiefs in the second half as Luke Romano broke open the match with his try early in the second spell, and then Daniel Carter added the conversion, four penalties and a drop goal.
Carter was able to dictate the play on the back of a strong performance from the Crusaders pack, which was bolstered further by the arrival of Brad Thorn for Chris Jack (poke in the eye) at half-time.
The home side dominated the scrum, stole lineout and forced errors at the breakdown while Carter's effective aerial kicking game kept the Chiefs pinned deep in their own half until the dying minutes of the match.
"We talked at half-time about needing to play at the right end of the field and get a bit of structure back and that’s what we did," said McCaw. "We got a bit of control and it meant we didn’t run out of gas.
"It was pretty loose in the first half and we were going side to side without actually getting control of the game. If we had stayed like that [in the second half] we might have run out of juice."
In the second half the Crusaders won at least two penalties by overpowering the Chiefs scrum, an area McCaw said the team felt had gone off the boil in recent games.
"At the start of the season we got some real reward for getting that right and perhaps to some extent we hadn’t nailed it in games recently," he admitted.
"We wanted to get that sorted again and we got some points out of that and got some rewards. It's pretty pleasing."
A disappointed Chiefs captain Mils Muliaina said being unable to get any foothold in the game after the break had been 'really frustrating', although they sneaked a bonus point with a converted try by Liam Messam on the final hooter.
"I don't think we played anything in our own 22 until that last two or so minutes. We felt we were still in the game [at 10 points down]. We got it back to seven but unfortunately they squeezed our lineout and got a couple of penalties kicks that put them in front.
"Although we came back and got a bonus point out of it we’re disappointed."
Chiefs coach Ian Foster conceded Romano's try had probably been the turning point.
"It got them in the lead in conditions where it was a difficult to move the ball around and