Late tries seal Crusaders' victory

Apr 5, 2014 - 5:54 PM A couple of late tries clinched a 28-7 victory for Canterbury Crusaders over Golden Lions Saturday in a Super Rugby match at Ellis Park.

Veteran scrum-half Andy Ellis dived over on 73 minutes and replacement fly-half Tyler Bleyendaal converted to give the New Zealanders a 16-point advantage.

And a superb grubber kick from All Blacks fullback Israel Dagg at the end set up centre Kieron Fonotia for a simple try and a deserved win by the seven-time champions.

The New Zealanders lacked their three biggest stars -- loose forwards Richie McCaw and Kieran Read are injured and fly-half Dan Carter is taking a sabbatical.

Crusaders, who started this season poorly with just two wins in five matches before travelling to South Africa, were deserved victors after winning the breakdowns battle.

Unlike most opponents of the Lions this season, the New Zealanders did not allow ill discipline to creep in and gift penalties to deadly place-kicker Marnitz Boshoff.

The Lions fly-half, who tops the Super 15 scoring charts with 109 points, had just two shots at goal and narrowly missed off an angled penalty before succeeding with a conversion.

After falling 13 points behind early in the second half, the Lions gained the initiative and centre Lionel Mapoe squeezed over in the corner for a try.

That narrowed the deficit to six points and 18 point-less minutes followed before Dagg slotted a penalty after regular kicker Colin Slade was forced to retire injured.

Despite winning comfortably, Crusaders climbed only one place to 12th on the overall southern hemisphere championship standings and remain bottom of the New Zealand conference.

Source: AAP