Crusaders win again
The Crusaders held off a strong Bulls' resurgence to record a gritty 16-13 victory in Christchurch on Friday.
Last Updated: 03/04/09 10:26am
The Crusaders held off a strong Bulls' resurgence to record a gritty 16-13 victory in what was a disappointing and lacklustre Super 14 encounter in Christchurch on Friday.
The match carried much promise between two winners of the tournament, but it was a bad day at the office for both sides in an error-strewn spectacle that produced 29 handing errors between them (the Crusaders leading the way with 16).
Despite the home side winning the possession and territorial stakes, the visiting South Africans so nearly pulled off a big upset and will be kicking themselves for letting this one slip away after outscoring their hosts by two tries to one.
For the most part the Bulls were uncharacteristically ineffective in the tackle and their counter-rucking, and as a result were made to haul their heavy frames across the Christchurch turf more often than they'd care to remember.
The defending champions opted to commit minimal numbers to the breakdown, giving them options, and more often than not, a numbers advantage when they spun the ball wide in a bid to negate the Bulls' beefy pack.
Opportunities
But once again, the Crusaders could not convert many promising opportunities and had to rely on a bumbling effort from the Bulls for their only try of the match thanks to some good follow-up work by promising lock Isaac Ross.
The rest of the points came from the boot of fly-half Stephen Brett who put on a flawless kicking display - a vast improvement from previous weeks.
The Bulls were much more competitive than in their shock loss to the Highlanders the previous week, and they looked likely to score their first win in Christchurch since 1996 when the scores were levelled on the hour.
Wing Akona Ndungane scored the second of his two tries for the Bulls, the first coming six minutes before half time, and the visitors were in with a big chance.
But a high tackle by Pedrie Wannenburg allowed Brett to give his team the lead after 64 minutes with an easy penalty goal and the home team held on in a nail-biting finish.
