As the euphoria following the weekend’s local derbies subsides, let’s take a moment to acknowledge a truly special effort by a very special team.

I was sitting on a farm somewhere on the West Coast on Saturday morning trying my best to follow rugby scores on my cell-phone, when my better half asked me who was playing that morning. Now having had to put up with me for the last 5 to 6 years being involved with a couple of rugby blogs, her knowledge of the game and current matters involving rugby are actually very good, so when I said that the Crusaders are currently playing the Hurricanes in Wellington (in which was supposed to be a home fixture for the men from Cantebury), I was struck by the significance of the achievements of this team in the Super Rugby tournament of 2011.

We are all quite aware of the horrible events that the people from Christchurch went through in the last 4 to 5 months when the city was struck by a massive earthquake, followed by some equally devastating aftershocks the last of which occurred as early as last week.

For a population of 340 000-odd thousand citizens, the effects of this disaster would have been felt by every single individual.

The city not only lost their right to host matches in the Rugby World Cup to be hosted in New Zealand later this year, the Crusaders also lost their home for the duration of the Super Rugby competition.

In the aftermath of the earthquake, and apart from having to deal with the personal effects this would have had on the team and its players, arrangements now also had to be made for the Crusaders to play what would have been home-fixtures on other grounds, one of those as far as London, England, where they played the Sharks in what will go down as a magnificent occasion, and Super Rugby first.

Imagine for just one second if you will, the enormity of all of this.

In the last two weeks, we saw 50 000 + stadiums in South Africa sold out for two massive local derbies of huge importance to each team involved. Only this morning I listened to Stefan Terblanche on radio where he made mention of the importance and how rare it is for any team to travel to Loftus and collect a win. Some rugby pundits even believe home ground advantage can count as much as 10 points for the home team before the game kicks off!

So even ignoring the massive, and terrible effects the earthquake would have had on the Crusaders rugby team on a personal level, from a pure rugby perspective and the importance of home fixtures, the effort by the lads from Christchurch to end top of the NZ conference, and third on the combined log is absolutely mind-boggling.

Last week I watched a behind-the-scenes video of the Crusaders on the events on match-day, which includes a 4-hour bus trip to Nelson, and what struck me most was the ease in which these guys approached the whole thing, and how all of this is simply taken in their stride.

Since I started following the game of rugby union as a laaitie there were many amazing things I experienced and witnessed, this, ranks amongst the most amazing ever.

The Sharks will leave South Africa tomorrow night on what will no doubt be a trip from hell where they will have to travel half-way across the world to play in their qualifier against the very same Crusaders side. Where there is no doubt every single South African will be rooting for the boys from Durban come Saturday 09:35 in what will be one of the toughest away fixtures one could hope for, take a moment to consider their opposition who won the right to play at home, but will make that same 4-hour bus-trip to Nelson yet again.

Really special teams, or really special efforts from teams is quite rare in rugby. We saw 80 minutes of this at Loftus on Saturday by the Sharks, but we have also seen a whole season of this by the Crusaders.