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Match Highlights - Crusaders cruise past Sharks to book Hurricanes semi-final

By Nicholas McGee

Defending Super Rugby champions the Crusaders booked a mouth-watering semi-final clash with the Hurricanes as they eased to a 40-10 victory over the Sharks.

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A mismatch always looked on the cards in Saturday’s contest between a team that finished top of the overall standings and the Sharks, who snuck into the final play-off spot on points difference.

And so it proved as the Crusaders pulled clear in the second half to move within a win of a second successive final.

The hosts ran in five tries to ensure they will welcome the Hurricanes to Christchurch next week for what promises to be an enticing meeting between the competition’s last two champions.

Bryn Hall and David Havili crossed in the first half for Crusaders, while Richie Mo’unga added two penalties, although Jacobus van Wyk’s try gave the Sharks hope.

Continue reading below…

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But Matt Todd went over for the Crusaders’ third shortly after the second-half restart, before Mo’unga and Robert du Preez traded penalties, and the last line of the Sharks defence was consistently challenged as the game threatened to turn into a rout.

The visitors could not withstand the stream of Crusaders attacks, however, and Braydon Ennor and Peter Samu rounded things off for the holders, for whom a greater test lies in wait next week.

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J
Jon 9 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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