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Canterbury blast Tasman with record score in quarter-final
By Ben Smith
Canterbury have booked a ticket to the Bunnings NPC semi-finals after thrashing Tasman by a record score 62-14 in Blenheim.
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The shock result saw the 8-2 third seed Mako bow out to “big brother” Canterbury, the other Crusaders feeder province, in humiliating fashion.
While Canterbury has reversed their season fortunes around after suffering a historic 65-19 loss to North Harbour, the largest in their history, just a fortnight ago.
Boosted by the return of All Blacks Fletcher Newell, Sam Darry and George Bell proved too much, as Tasman unfortunately lost Ethan Blackadder before kick-off who was ruled out with injury.
Upstart flanker Corey Kellow opened the scoring in the seventh minute and Canterbury did not look back, putting on five tries to one in the first half to lead 33-7 at the break.
Along with Kellow, Mitch Drummond, Braydon Ennor, Ngane Punivai all crossed to bury Tasman in a 24-0 hole.
Crusaders centre Levi Aumua managed to strike back for Tasman to offer a slim hope, but another try right before the half to Tom Christie quickly extinguished that hope.
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After being undefeated sevens rounds into the competition and capturing the Ranfurly Shield off Hawke’s Bay, they looked like title favourites.
Losing the Ranfurly in the last round of the competition to Taranaki proved to be a fatal hangover, with the 48-point defeat and quarter-final exit a bitter pill to swallow.
Canterbury will now face the fourth seed Bay of Plenty away, while in the other semi-final Wellington will host Waikato after the squeaked past Taranaki 15-14 in New Plymouth.
Blackadder needs to reconsider every aspect of what he does in between actually playing games, which is rare.
He should probably do the exact opposite of whatever his training programme says and just see how that goes. He literally can't string more than two games together.
Ethan Blackadder really tryna break his "least number of games played in a year" record or something.