Can anyone stop the Crusaders?
The halfway point of the Super Rugby regular season is here, and what do you know, the two-time defending champions are heading into their bye with daylight between them and the rest.
For a second week in a row the Crusaders found themselves trailing in Christchurch at halftime, and for a second week in a row they duly jumped into their work in the second half to dismantle their opposition.
It’s almost as if the red-and-blacks are toying with their opponents, just saving a bit of energy before thinking ‘OK, let’s play now’, and deciding to go and bank a bonus-point victory.
Their latest effort was a
43-17 win over the Highlanders on Friday night, coming from
10-7 down at the break to heap more misery on the southerners, as Ben Smith’s
150th match had no fairytale result.
After a similar performance against the Brumbies the round prior, the Crusaders have scored only seven points in their last two first halves but 72 in their emphatic second spells.
It all adds up to the Crusaders entering their first bye of the season in a commanding spot at the head of the ladder on 34 points – 11 clear of their nearest rivals, with the Hurricanes, Rebels and Bulls all on
23 in their respective conferences, with one game in hand.
With the Hurricanes on their bye week, the Blues had the chance to leapfrog them into second in the Kiwi standings, but the Auckland-based side’s winning run came to a halt at the hands of the Chiefs in Hamilton on Saturday night.
The Blues had strung four home victories together but couldn’t back it up on the road as the Chiefs continued their resurgence with a thrilling
33-29 win that extended their unbeaten run in the Battle of the Bombays to 15 games.
It wasn’t all rosy for the Chiefs, with a knee injury to Damian McKenzie causing them some concern, along with knocks to fellow All Blacks Brodie Retallick and Nathan Harris, but they are finally off the bottom of the New Zealand conference following their awful 0-4 start to the season.
They now sit two points above the Highlanders and four behind the Blues, with those two sides doing battle this weekend – a repeat of just three weeks back, where the Blues had ended their lengthy derby win drought.
Meanwhile, the wacky results keep coming in the South African conference, with the Jaguares heading into their second bye after a 51-17 demolition of the Sharks in Durban yesterday.
The Sharks had only last weekend gone to Johannesburg and ripped apart the Lions 42-5, only to have their turn at being embarrassed at home, with the Argentines making up for their earlier 0-2 trek to South Africa by going 2-0 this time, backing up their victory over the Bulls in Pretoria.
Centre Matias Orlando nabbed a hat-trick in the final minute in rather bizarre fashion, when the ball squirted out of a ruck on the goal-line of the Sharks, who looked lucky to even score two tries of their own, with potentially forward passes leading up to each.
The Sharks’ shocker now sees their conference lead relinquished to the Bulls, after they notched a
32-17 bonus-point win over the Reds in Pretoria yesterday.
First five-eighth Handre Pollard – who is the competition’s leading pointscorer – continued his fine season, scoring two tries and crosskicking to set
up another try for the Bulls.
All five teams in the South African conference are separated by only five points, after the Lions and Stormers had contrasting fortunes at the weekend.
The Stormers upset the Australian conferenceleading Rebels 41-24 in Melbourne on Friday night while the Lions – runners-up the last three years – have fallen to the bottom of the conference after going down 31-20 to the Brumbies in Canberra on Saturday night.