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Recap: Blues vs Crusaders LIVE | Super Rugby

Blues v Crusaders

Follow all the action on the RugbyPass live blog from the Super Rugby match between the Blues and the Crusaders at Eden Park.

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Keep up to date with the latest score, stats and join the conversation from anywhere in the world in our Live Match Centre (click here).

The third round of Super Rugby kicks off with a game between the competition’s first two title-winners as they both look to record their second win of the season.

Both Kiwi sides have bested the Waratahs – the Crusaders did it home in round one while the Blues managed a solid victory in NSW last week – and they were both undone by the Chiefs having led their respective fixtures at half-time.

Blues coach Leon MacDonald has largely kept the faith with the side which achieved five competition points over the weekend and made just two changes, bringing All Blacks James Parsons and Ofa Tu’ungafasi into the starting team for the first time this year.

Continue reading below…

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It’s a similar story for the Crusaders, who have changed their halves combo, bringing in Richie Mo’unga (who was unavailable for the match against the Chiefs) and Bryn Hall, and promoted youngster Cullen Grace to a starting role in the loose forwards thanks to an injury to Whetukamokamo Douglas.

“When the Super Rugby schedule comes out you always look first for the Crusaders game,” said Blues head coach Leon MacDonald. “They are the benchmark.

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“It is the game where the hairs on the back of your neck bristle and this one will be no different.”

In last year’s derby at Eden Park, the Crusaders led 12-3 at halftime. The Blues raced back into the match in the second half, however, taking a 17-12 lead at one point and scoring one of the tries of the season in the process.

Two penalty tries and two to Manasa Mataele ultimately gave the Crusaders a 24-22 win away from home, however.

The Blues will be counting on the forwards to give them a better platform this year with the Crusaders losing masses of experience in their squad since last year.

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Blues forwards coach is counting on exactly that.

“They’ve shown for a while now that when they’re under the pump they go to their scrum. They go to their lineout and try to pick penalties off it,” said Coventry. “They try to find faults in your concentration levels so we need to be right up there throughout the match.

“It would be nice to turn the tables a little bit, wouldn’t it – but we’ll just be looking for parity and see what happens in that battle.”

The match kicks off at 7:05PM (NZT) from Eden Park in Auckland.

WATCH: Fijian flyer Sevu Reece has extended his contract with New Zealand Rugby and the Crusaders.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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