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Watch - Crusaders take down 'quality' Landers side

Defending champions the Crusaders beat South Island rivals the Highlanders 33-13 in Super Rugby on Friday, but again produced a performance well below their best.

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Now 3 and 1 before their first bye of the season, the Crusaders scored four tries to lead 26-8 at halftime, then managed only a try apiece with the based Highlanders in a less dominant second half performance.

The Crusaders’ first half tries were mainly opportunist or against the run of play.

They were stronger than the Highlanders at set pieces but exerted no control over the match and were frequently stretched in defence.

“The ‘Landers are a quality side and we had to keep them out in that last 20 minutes,” Crusaders captain David Havili said.

WATCH: Waratahs captain Rob Simmons spoke with media.

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“We talked about getting our rhythm right this weekend and we got a wee bit of that throughout the game and I felt we nailed it at stages.”

The Crusaders produced moments of exceptional rugby from players such as winger George Bridge plus the midfield of Braydon Ennor and Jack Goodhue.

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But they again fell short of a complete performance by bombing several try-scoring opportunities.

The Highlanders scored the first points of the match from a penalty but the Crusaders scored the first try through Taylor in the 14th minute.

Flanker Tom Christie expanded the Crusaders’ lead in the 20th minute before the Highlanders cut their margin with a try to winger Michael Collins.

Ennor exploited lax defence to make the lead 19-8 and Bridge scored off a Highlanders error to give the hosts a 26-8 halftime buffer.

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The Highlanders scored first in the second half but the Crusaders replied with a try to replacement flanker Sione Havili, which clinched their win and a bonus point.

AAP

WATCH: England head coach Eddie Jones was forced to apologise after making a bizarre remark about racism that has invited renewed scrutiny of his England regime.

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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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LONG READ Mick Cleary: 'Borthwick needs to have faith in Marcus Smith' Mick Cleary: 'Borthwick needs to have faith in Marcus Smith'
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