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Crusaders triumph over Jaguares
By RugbyPass
The Crusaders have maintained their perfect record against the Jaguares with a 40-14 win in Buenos Aires.
The win places the Crusaders at the top of the New Zealand conference after eight weeks of competition.
The hosts were held scoreless in the first half, while left winger George Bridge had a double for the visitors within fifteen minutes.
Manasa Mataele dotted down from the right wing before halftime to give his side a 19-0 lead at the break.
The Jaguares struck shortly after the start of the second spell, with fullback Joaquin Tuculet opening the scoring for his side.
However, the score was quickly negated as Crusaders flyhalf Mitch Hunt crossed just five minutes later.
The two teams traded blows with Emiliano Boffelli and Ryan Crotty scoring, before Manasa Mataele bagged his double and sealed the win with a 68th minute try.
Once again a failure to secure the ball let the Jaguares down, as the Crusaders forced the Argentinian side into conceding 22 turnovers.
Mitch Hunt was the high point man, finishing with 13 after scoring a try and kicking four conversions.
The Crusaders wingers outscored the Jaguares by themselves as they combined for four tries, 20 points and 193 running metres.
Scott Robertson's men are now rewarded with a week off, while Mario Ledesma's Jaguares will travel for just the second time this season, heading to Melbourne to take on the Australian conference-leading Rebels.
CRUSADERS 40 (Bridge 2, Mataele 2, Hunt, Crotty tries; Hunt 4 cons, Delany con) JAGUARES 14 (Tuculet, Boffelli tries; Sanchez 2 cons) HT 19-0
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Latest Comments
GB is England, Scotland, Wales. They are the 3 constituent countries in Great Britain. Ergo playing only those three countries is a tour of GB. The difference between GB and the UK is Northern Ireland. It's not a huge deal to be accurate and call places by their correct name. But please refrain from your idiotic attempts to BS that GB=UK. It doesn't.
Go to commentsThe 2023 draw was only criticized when it became apparent that the top 5 sides in the world were on the same side of the draw. Nowhere did they discuss the decision to backtrack to 2019 rankings which ensured that England and Wales (ranked #12 in 2023) were ranked top4.
The parties who trashed out the schedule were England Rugby, NZ Rugby and ITV. It is bordering on corrupt that a Rugby nation has the power to schedule its opponents to play a major match the week before facing them in a QF.
You won't find commentary by members of the relevant committees because a committee did not make the scheduling decision. I have never heard members of World Rugby speak out on the draw or scheduling issues.
For example in 2015 Japan were hammered by Scotland 4 days after beating SA. The criticism only happens after a cock up.
A fair pool schedule is pretty straightforward: The lowest two tanked teams must play on last pool day but not against each other. That means that TV can focus on promoting big matches with a Tier2 involved for that Friday.
Why does NZ Always get its preferred slot playing the hardest pool match on day 1?
Why do other teams eg France, Ireland, Scotland get so often scheduled to play a hard match the week before the QFs?
If you believe the rules around scheduling are transparent then please point me in the right direction?
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