{"id":11039,"date":"2012-06-03T10:39:09","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T08:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/rugby-crusaders-form-frightening-as-super-rugby-takes-break\/"},"modified":"2012-06-03T10:39:09","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T08:39:09","slug":"rugby-crusaders-form-frightening-as-super-rugby-takes-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-crusaders-form-frightening-as-super-rugby-takes-break\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Crusaders form &#8216;frightening&#8217; as Super Rugby takes break"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Greg Stutchbury<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">WELLINGTON, June 3<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Ten minutes of blistering<br \/>\nhigh-tempo rugby against the Otago Highlanders on Friday was all<br \/>\nthe Canterbury Crusaders needed to send out a warning to the<br \/>\nrest of Super Rugby &#8211; the seven-times champions were ready for<br \/>\nthe business end of the season.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>While South Africa&#8217;s Stormers also look in imposing form<br \/>\ngoing into the four-week international break, and the ACT<br \/>\nBrumbies continue to surprise in Australia, the Crusaders seem<br \/>\nto be building up quite a head of steam.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In their fifth match at in their new Christchurch home on<br \/>\nFriday, the Crusaders clinically exploited England international<br \/>\nJames Haskell&#8217;s sinbinning and scored 22 unanswered points in<br \/>\nthe time the loose forward was off the field.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The score blew out to 32-13 and the Highlanders, winners of<br \/>\nnine games this season, seventh in the table and looking to stay<br \/>\nin the playoffs race themselves, never recovered.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>That the Crusaders were so efficient, so ruthless in attack<br \/>\nand brutal in defence was, as respected New Zealand Herald rugby<br \/>\njournalist Wynne Gray put it, &#8220;frightening&#8221; and the 51-18 win<br \/>\npropelled them into fourth place in the standings on 51 points.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are playing like Crusaders teams of the past now. It&#8217;d<br \/>\nbe good to keep it like that,&#8221; winger Zac Guildford told Fairfax<br \/>\nMedia after the Highlanders game.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Crusaders, who provided 10 players to the All Blacks<br \/>\nsquad named on Sunday for three tests against Ireland, will face<br \/>\nthe sixth-placed Hurricanes and table-topping Chiefs in their<br \/>\nfinal two games.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Home advantage is going to be crucial,&#8221; Guildford said of<br \/>\nthe playoffs. &#8220;We&#8217;d like to see the Chiefs upset and then, when<br \/>\nwe meet, get one over them.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Greg Stutchbury WELLINGTON, June 3 (Reuters) &#8211; Ten minutes of blistering high-tempo rugby against the Otago Highlanders on Friday was all the Canterbury Crusaders needed to send out a warning to the rest of Super Rugby &#8211; the seven-times champions were ready for the business end of the season. While South Africa&#8217;s Stormers also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-11039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}