The Canterbury Crusaders yesterday continued their domination of Super Rugby Aotearoa as they inflicted an unwanted record on a hapless Waikato Chiefs with a 39-17 victory in Christchurch.
The six-tries-to-one, bonus-point win kept the unbeaten Crusaders at the top of the ladder with their third win from as many matches, while the Chiefs continued a losing streak that began last year to equal the record 11 consecutive defeats by a New Zealand Super side held by the 2012-2013 Otago Highlanders.
The determination of the Chiefs to avoid another loss catapulted them to an early 10-point lead before they surrendered 39 unanswered points.
After slipping behind 11-10, they twice won turnover ball from a rampant Crusaders pack in the run-up to halftime, but the game finally slipped away from them with a disputed penalty try soon after the resumption.
Crusaders captain Scott Barrett put the secret to his side’s success down to their desire to run the ball.
“The easy thing is to kick it, but we’ve seen teams holding the ball, building pressure more often than not come out on top, so we’re looking to build phases, build pressure and hopefully points,” Barrett said.
The Chiefs need to beat the Wellington Hurricanes next week to avoid holding the losing record outright, and captain Brad Weber voiced confidence that they could do that.
“Never once in that game did anyone drop a lip or think we were out of it,” Weber said.
“The belief was always there, and jeez we do a lot of good things in 80 minutes and we’ve just got to put more and more of them together and we’ll get a result,” he said.
Damian McKenzie contributed all of the Chiefs’ early points with a converted try and a penalty.
The Crusaders struck back when utility David Havili set up Leicester Fainga’anuku, who scored in acrobatic fashion in the corner as McKenzie bundled him over the sideline.
When the Crusaders’ powerful pack could not muscle their way over the line, they needed two Richie Mo’unga penalties to take the lead before halftime.
The penalty try early in the second half propelled the Crusaders to an 18-10 lead after the television match official ruled an apparent forward pass from Mo’unga in the lead-up actually came off a Chiefs player’s arm.
However, television replays indicated that Chiefs’ defender Weber had hit Mo’unga’s arm and not the ball.
There was no doubting further tries to Will Jordan, Whetu Douglas and Mitchell Dunshea, before Etene Nanai-Seturo scored a late consolation try for the Chiefs.
In Super Rugby AU, the Queensland Reds overcame an early 17-point deficit to beat the ACT Brumbies 40-38.
With less than two minutes remaining, Wallabies center Jordan Petaia scored a try from a Hunter Paisami grubber and flyhalf James O’Connor kicked the conversion for the two-point win.
Additional reporting by AP
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