Lions roar into semis with Crusaders win

Tries from flying winger Courtnall Skosan and centre Rohan Janse van Rensburg inside the opening seven minutes laid the platform for a stunning 42-25 Super Rugby quarter-final victory for the Lions over the Canterbury Crusaders at Ellis Park yesterday.
The win ensures a first ever Super Rugby semifinal for the Johannesburg-based side, who finished top of the South Africa Conference at the end of the regular season. The Lions scored further tries through powerful hooker Malcolm Marx, wing Ruan Combrinck and replacement scrumhalf Ross Cronje as they amassed their highest ever points tally against the New Zealanders.
The visitors were in the game going into the final 15 minutes and scored tries via centre Ryan Crotty, scrumhalf Mitchell Drummond and centre Ben Volavola, but ran out of puff in the thin Highveld air. “This was a massive game for us. We knew tonight would be a battle and I am so proud of the boys,” Lions captain Warren Whiteley told reporters.
“We spoke in the week about making a good start. We drove well, we scrummed well and our set-piece was strong. We managed to put points on the board and leave them chasing the game. Our start and our finish were fantastic.”
The Lions applied huge pressure with ball in hand from the kick-off and were rewarded with those two early scores. After the teams traded penalties, the Crusaders began to find their rhythm and camped in the Lions half as they starved the home side of the ball and pummeled the tryline.
Having been denied by some scrambling defence, the dam wall broke and they finally got a reward as Crotty dotted down at the foot of the post seven minutes before halftime. But the momentum swung again in the home side’s favour as Whiteley opted for a line-out rather than three points and was rewarded for his ambition as Marx barged over for a converted score that put the Johannesburg-based side 22-10 up at the break despite only having 35 percent of possession.
When Drummond scored a converted try the deficit was cut to eight points with 17 minutes remaining, before Combrink and Cronje settled the match in favour of the home side. “No excuses, we gave it our all. We let them get off to a flyer. It wasn’t to be this season, but we have had fun along the way,” Crusaders captain Kieran Read said.

Hurricanes storm home with record win over Sharks
The Wellington Hurricanes crushed the Coastal Sharks with a record setting 41-0 victory to cruise into the Super Rugby semi-finals on a stormy night in Wellington yesterday.
For the first time in the history of the Southern Hemisphere championship a side has been kept scoreless in a play-off match. It is a record Sharks captain Tendai Mtawarira did not want to be part of, describing the South Africans performance as an “embarrassing effort” against the top-ranked New Zealanders.
With a howling wind and rain playing havoc with ball control, the Hurricanes still managed to score six tries to none as they raced away in the second half after leading 13-0 at half-time.
However, their celebrations were tempered with captain Dane Coles taken from the field in the second half and rushed to hospital with what appeared to be a serious rib injury.
In the foul weather, the Hurricanes cashed in on a turnover ball in the first half before TJ Perenara and Beauden Barrett defied the wind and rain in the second spell to orchestrate an attacking game.
“We changed a few things with the weather, we knew we couldn’t be too expansive but we put them in the right areas of the field and our forwards being physical enough to dominate a few collisions helped us,” Perenara said.
While the Hurricanes move on to the semis, the tournament ended for the Sharks with Mtawarira saying things did not go according to plan.  “We wanted to play a territory game but the Hurricanes outclassed us,” he said. “We made a lot of costly errors, a lot of defensive errors... and in the end it was an embarrassing effort.”
Barrett landed one penalty and after failing to convert the first half tries by Loni Uhila and James Marshall he was on target to land the extras when Jason Woodward, Vaea Fifita and Perenara scored in the second half.
After he was replaced along with Perenara and Victor Vito with 20 minutes remaining, Woodward took over the kicking duties to convert Brad Shields’ try at the end.
Sharks fly-half Garth April had three penalty attempts in the first spell and fell victim to the unpredictable wind each time.
Prop Uhila thundered over for the first try from close range after JP Pietersen failed to gather a high kick that swirled around in the wind.
Marshall scored the second from a blindside move after the Hurricanes were gifted a scrum when a lineout delivery slithered through the hands of Sharks scrum-half Michael Claasens. Perenara was instrumental in the first two tries of the second half as he waltzed through tackles to send Woodward and then lock Fifita over.
He was then the recipient of a simple try when Uhila took a tap penalty close to the line and the big prop produced a sidestep that a back would be proud of to open up a gap for Perenara to dive through.