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All Black captain Richie McCaw may have his early season break cut short as the seven-time champion Crusaders search for answers to their dramatic slump - which resulted in a historic 20-41 loss to the Reds at the weekend.

Crusaders coach Todd Blackadder, who bemoaned his team's lack of discipline in an 'un-Crusader like' performance, admitted that McCaw is set for a bench role when they face the Sharks in a Round Three match on Friday.

McCaw isn't due back until March 6 and just last week it was announced that his return match would be against the Blues in Week Four.

However, the drubbing at the hands of the Reds have caused a rethink and he might feature off the bench against the South African visitors.

"Part of the plan is that he will be available for the bench," Crusaders Blackadder told the Christchurch-based The Press newspaper.

"He's definitely keen to come back ... he's breaking down the door to play."

McCaw has been practising with the squad and Blackadder maintained he would not be rushed back into his No.7 jersey.

"He's been to every training run, getting right amongst it. We just didn't want to throw him to the wolves too early."

Although most Crusaders fans would prefer to see McCaw start, just having his presence and knowing he is waiting to be unleashed from the dugout should add assurance.

While McCaw's reinstatement will be of comfort to Blackadder, the coach also has to figure out what changes, if any, he will make for the Sharks match.

One thing appears certain: he won't go carving up his team as a knee-jerk reaction to the heavy defeat.

"If you were looking at just that one poor performance, you would replace your whole team. It was just one of those nights when nothing went right."

Blackadder is also keen to address the ill-discipline that plagued his side's performance.

"We certainly didn't have a great night, we're usually better than that. There's probably key areas that we didn't perform in that hurt us, one was discipline," he said.

"I thought from the start that discipline was poor, then defensively we missed too many tackles and the Reds were certainly making some really good line-breaks.

"We respected them, we recognised they were a good side, we saw that pre-season and we saw it last week. There was no way we were complacent; you can't be complacent, if you're slightly off the pace you get put away."

Expectations were high that the Crusaders would win and grab four valuable competition points, but instead they left with zilch after trailing 6-14 at half-time and 13-41 in the final minute, until Brad Thorn scored a late try.

"We were just not there mentally," Blackadder conceded.

"And then when you try to play catch-up, you just try too hard. In all honesty, the whole team played poorly ... you would have to question our mentality."