{"id":532351,"date":"2026-03-11T02:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T02:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532351\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T02:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T02:48:09","slug":"lovely-to-see-crusaders-players-separated-in-training-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/532351\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Lovely to see’: Crusaders players separated in training incident"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tensions have boiled over at Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> training for the second time this season, with the Crusaders the latest club forced to separate players midway through a session.<\/p>\n

Crusaders forwards Kershawl Sykes-Martin and Will Tucker were reportedly pulled off each other on Tuesday in Christchurch, and while it is unclear whether punches were thrown, stuff.co.nz described the altercation as a “feisty dust-up<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year Waratahs lock Miles Amatosero<\/a> was handed a four-game ban, two of which were suspended, after he unloaded a flurry of punches on teammate Angus Scott-Young during a training session in Sydney.<\/p>\n

Scott-Young suffered a fractured eye socket as a result and is still to debut for the Waratahs through the first four rounds of the regular season.<\/p>\n

It appears the Crusaders incident will not require an investigation, as occurred at the Waratahs, while coach Rob Penney later said it was “lovely to see”.<\/p>\n

The Crusaders, the defending champions, are 1-3 so far this season, with their defeat by the Blues in Auckland proving particularly disappointing as it came after a stunning win over the Chiefs in Hamilton a week earlier.<\/p>\n

“It was a really lovely sight to see, actually. It is a reflection of how much it means. The boys aren’t happy with the performances and the outcomes,” Penney said when asked about the altercation later on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Rob Penney wasn’t too concerned when two of his players had an altercation at Crusaders training this week\u00a0Phil Walter\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

“Very proud young men are going to come up against each other and create a bit of sandpaper from time to time.<\/p>\n

“But it’s not a thing that is going to affect negatively. We are all over it, the boys are fine.”<\/p>\n

The Crusaders have played three of their first four games on the road but welcome the Highlanders to Christchurch this weekend.<\/p>\n

Star fullback Will Jordan is expected to return for Saturday’s clash with their south island rivals, while Penney will be hoping his side can remedy a whopping 18 turnovers from last week’s defeat at Eden Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tensions have boiled over at Super Rugby Pacific training for the second time this season, with the Crusaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-532351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}