Wily Crusaders see off wasteful Chiefs
Hamilton team struggle to convert territory and possession into points
The Chiefs picked a bad night to have a bad night.
Heading into their Super Rugby Pacific semifinal against the champion Crusaders in Christchurch last night, they needed to be at their best.
As tends to be the case every year, a lot was made of the Crusaders’ immaculate record in home playoff games, but the fact the Chiefs had beaten them down south this season saw plenty of intrigue in the game.
But as good as the Crusaders are, as it turned out, they simply needed to sit back, make their tackles and wait for the Chiefs to shoot themselves in the foot, with the hosts claiming a 20-7 win.
That’s not to say the Crusaders weren’t good. When they got their opportunities, they took them in superb fashion, with Richie Mo’unga impressing with ball in hand, while a handful of players made 20 tackles or more.
Throughout the contest, this was how things played out. Even when the Chiefs went a man down through a Quinn Tupaea yellow card inside the opening 10 minutes, the visitors dominated the territory and possession battle — forcing the Crusaders to make over 100 more tackles than them and being on the right side of a 13-8 penalty count.
But handling errors, poor execution from penalties and set pieces, and several blown tries meant while the Chiefs were the dominating force, they were chasing the game.
While the Crusaders’ defence was immense inside their own 22, several members of the Chiefs team won’t be too keen to watch the game back.
After Mo’unga knocked through a couple of early penalties, the Crusaders had few real attacking opportunities but made them count. After spending 10 minutes defending as the Chiefs tried to attack from their scrum — following a bombed try by Pita Gus Sowakula — the Crusaders pounced on an error, sent the ball down field and forced Brad Weber to take it back over his own goal line.
The Crusaders needed just one play from the scrum to score a try — with Cullen Grace doing what his opposite couldn’t and making sure to plant the ball.
While the Chiefs spent 10 minutes with a numbers disadvantage, two first-half yellow cards to Pablo Matera (high shots in the 20th and 32nd minutes) meant the Crusaders spent half an hour with 14 men on the park — but it didn’t show as the Chiefs struggled to find a gap in the defence.
The Chiefs finally got over the line minutes later through Angus Ta’avao, but faced a 20-7 deficit at halftime following a second Grace try.
It was much of the same for most of the second half. The Chiefs had the better of territory and possession but the Crusaders just kept tackling and turning them away. Even when they conceded a penalty or several, the Chiefs couldn’t make them pay.
They should have scored at least one try in the half, but Quinn Tupaea tried to get the ball to an unmarked Alex Nankivell out wide rather than going himself from close range, and instead threw the ball well above Nankivell and into the stands.
That wastefulness meant there were no points scored in the second half, with a massive defensive effort solidifying yet another appearance in the grand final for the Crusaders. Crusaders 20 (Cullen Grace 2 tries; Richie Mo’unga 2 cons, 2 pens) Chiefs 7 (Angus Ta’avao try; Bryn Gatland con)
HT: 20-7