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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
Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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