The Waratahs will have no margin of error against the competition-leading Crusaders on Saturday night, backrower Jack Dempsey says.
NSW will take on the red-hot Crusaders in a week where the Christchurch side will have even more to play for than usual, carrying the emotional toll of last week's tragic attacks.
Asked what it would take to beat the Crusaders, who are currently on a Super Rugby record 19-match winning streak, Dempsey was frank.
"Our best performance," he said.
"These guys are back to back champions, they're undefeated at the moment.
"They've got an emotional week as well behind them so we know we're going to have to put our best foot forward and we've done that this week with our prep.
"We're excited about it because whenever you get to test yourself against the best - it's a bit like playing the All Blacks on the Test scene.
"You get to measure yourself against the best of the best so we're excited for that."
The Waratahs and Crusaders have played out a tight rivalry in recent years and though the Waratahs have won just two of their past five matchups, none of those were major blowouts.
NSW jumped out to a 29-0 lead in their 2018 match in Christchurch before being mowed down and Dempsey, who watched that match from Australia, said they had to be smarter this time around.
"Cronny's (forwards coach Simon Cron) talked about it all week to the forwards about how we learned lessons from that game, about how to finish games and he calls it 'rugby brain things', it's stuff you've got to be smarter in certain areas of the game in set piece, lineout, scrums," he said.
"We have so many boys playing tomorrow night that were in that game, they've learned a lot from that game. It's about putting an 80-minute performance down so we're looking to rectify that."
The Waratahs are in many ways closely linked with the Crusaders club, both historically and with coach Daryl Gibson having played and coached the Super Rugby powerhouse in the past and Dempsey said there was always a sense that their encounters were bigger events than usual.
"The history of the Waratahs and the Crusaders by itself is something that I know when I first walked in the building in 2015 was after the year they'd just beaten them in the final and then obviously they've faced before in finals in the past," he said.
"The history is very strong there as well as we have two coaches who have connections with that club as well.
"It is something we get up for every (year), it's not like a Brumbies week - there's a lot of rivalry there - but our focus is always to worry about ourselves first and make sure we put our best performance on and at the end of the day whether it's crusaders, Queensland , Melbourne, doesn't mater.
"We believe if we play our best game we can beat anyone."
The Waratahs take on the Crusaders on Saturday March 23, kicking off at 7:45pm AEDT, LIVE on FOX SPORTS and via RUGBY.com.au RADIO. Buy tickets here.
