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Remarkable injury-time Hunt drop-goal keeps Crusaders rolling on

Crusaders celebrate Mitchell Hunt’s injury-time drop-goal

Mitchell Hunt landed a monster drop-goal in the third minute of injury time as Crusaders made it 14 from 14 this Super Rugby season with a dramatic 25-22 win over Highlanders.

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Crusaders’ perfect record looked like coming to an end at unlucky 13 when they trailed 22-19 with three minutes to go at AMI Stadium on Saturday.

Hunt slotted a penalty to bring the scores level, but missed with another effort from the tee as the end of the 80 minutes approached.

But from the restart and with the clock having gone red, Crusaders went through 18 phases before Hunt, under pressure from two attempted charge-downs, thumped over a stunning drop from beyond the 10-metre line to spark scenes of jubilation among players and fans alike.

Crusaders had led 19-10 at the interval, a brace of Waisake Naholo tries early in the second period edging Highlanders ahead before Hunt capped a dramatic finale – the fly-half conceding afterwards he was surprised to see his effort go over.

“Wyatt Crockett turned around and said ‘do something with it’ and there wasn’t anything else I could do,” he said. “For a short player I can hardly punt it that far so I was pretty lucky with that kick.”

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In a tightly-contested New Zealand conference, Chiefs and Hurricanes continued their strong seasons with respective wins over Waratahs and Western Force.

Hurricanes ran out 34-12 winners over the struggling Force, but that result belied the story of the match.

The Canes were pinned back on their own line for long periods, and were only 17-7 ahead with the hosts continuing to hammer on the door, before three late tries in the space of five minutes gave the final result a deceptively lop-sided look.

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Chiefs looked home and hosed when they romped into a 32-3 lead early in the second half, only for the Tahs to storm back and reduce the arrears to 39-31, before James Lowe completed his hat-trick to secure a 46-31 success.

“It would have been even better if we had been able to get a bonus point out of that. In patches we played pretty well but again the consistency in performance is letting us down,” said Aaron Cruden.

Meanwhile, Brumbies – who announced this week that Dan McKellar will take over from the departing Stephen Larkham as head coach from next season – routed Rebels 32-3.

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Nickers 21 minutes ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

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