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Crusaders beat Moana Pasifika in Richie Mo'unga's milestone match

(Photo by Joe Allison/Getty Images)

The Crusaders rallied from 21-17 down at halftime to beat last-placed Moana Pasifika 38-21 in a seventh-round match in Super Rugby Pacific in Christchurch.

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Winger Timoci Tavatavanawai and centre Levi Aumua had superb games for the winless Moana Pasifika and shared three first-half tries as they dominated physically against the under-strength Crusaders on Friday.

The defending champion Crusaders have been out of form all season and produced another disorganised display.

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The win lifted the Crusaders into third place at the start of the seventh round.

The Christchurch side finally came away with the match with three tries in the second half but the score over-stated their performance. The last try came just before the final whistle and inflated their winning margin.

The Crusaders led 31-21 in the 76th minute when Moana Pasifika winger Miracle Failangi dropped the ball with the goalline open, costing his team a try which would have made the last moments of the match more tense.

The edge held by the Crusaders was very slight. Hooker and captain Codie Taylor scored two first-half tries, the first created by five-eighth Richie Mo’unga in his 100th game for the Crusaders. The second was from a standard lineout drive.

“I think in the first half it felt like we had control at times and then Moana being Moana, they’d come away with a couple of moments,” Taylor said.

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“They’re hard boys to put down, they got good momentum and scored some good points.

“In the second half we just had to come out and bring the heat a bit and I think we did that.”

Aumua is now the best player in the league for beating tackles and metres made after contact, and showed that ability again Friday with some powerful runs.

He scored his first try in the 21st minute, beating three tackles, and his second in the 29th minute after an offload from Tavatavanawai.

Tavatavanawai moved from the left wing to the right but that didn’t really matter: he was everywhere on the field and scored just before halftime in a movement in which he handled the ball four times.

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Center Dallas McLeod scored in the 62nd minute and replacement halfback Willi Heinz sealed the win for he Crusaders just before the fulltime siren.

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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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