{"id":718635,"date":"2026-06-06T08:38:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T08:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718635\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T08:38:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T08:38:19","slug":"heres-johnny-crusaders-stretch-super-rugby-streak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/718635\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s Johnny! Crusaders stretch Super Rugby streak"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Crusaders have kept alive their stunning Super Rugby Pacific finals record, the defending champions steamrolling the Blues in their qualifying final, with fullback Johnny McNicholl bagging a hat-trick.<\/p>\n

The Crusaders have never lost a final at home, banking their 33rd win in Christchurch with a 52-31 scoreline in Saturday’s clash to secure a semi-final berth.<\/p>\n

They joined the table-topping Hurricanes, who thrashed the Brumbies 66-12 in Friday’s qualifying final in Wellington.<\/p>\n

Skipper David Havili, who scored a 29th minute try, said his team drilled down on the rich Crusaders history that includes 13 titles in a full competition outside of COVID.<\/p>\n

\"Crusaders<\/p>\n

David Havili says the Crusaders took heart from their strong record in finals. (John Davidson\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

“Yeah, it’s pretty special. We spoke about it this week, and we know how good we are at finals football, and we just backed our history in that,” the centre said.<\/p>\n

“There’s a few boys who aren’t out there, but we trust everyone in our jersey.”<\/p>\n

Playing at their One New Zealand Stadium, the Crusaders’ cause got a huge first-half boost with the Blues losing Malachi Wrampling-Alec to a red card.<\/p>\n

Australian referee Nic Berry gave the No.8 a yellow card for making “shoulder to head contact” on Crusaders flanker Leicester Fainga’anuku.<\/p>\n

That was quickly upgraded to a permanent send-off, with the TMO telling Berry there was a “high degree of danger with no mitigation”.<\/p>\n

\"Blues<\/p>\n

The Blues celebrated Sam Nock’s try against the Crusaders, but it was slim pickings. (John Davidson\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

The Crusaders quickly took advantage and two minutes later McNicholl picked a hole in the defence to score one of their five first-half tries as they marched to a 33-14 \u00a0lead at the break.<\/p>\n

Young playmaker Taha Kemara crossed in the 37th minute to cap the half, also booting four conversions.<\/p>\n

Flanker Anton Segner joined halfback Sam Nock, who opened the scoring in the second minute, among the Blues’ try-scorers, but there was a sense of foreboding heading into the second half.<\/p>\n

That was realised nine minutes in when McNicholl snagged his second, with Havili beating two men before offloading to his No.15 to push the tally to 40 points.<\/p>\n

The Blues, who finished one spot behind the Crusaders on the ladder in fourth, looked like they were finding a foothold in the match when centre Xavi Taele scored in the 53rd minute.<\/p>\n

But Rob Penney’s men snuffed out the fightback when McNicholl, who was brought in mid-season to cover injured All Blacks fullback Will Jordan, scored his third try of the game to take the lead to 47-21.<\/p>\n

The Blues scored two late tries to finish strongly, but the Crusaders cracked 50 with reserved hooker Manumaua Letiu touching down in the 73rd minute.<\/p>\n

The last two teams to move into the semi-finals will be decided by the last match on Saturday, with Queensland taking on the Chiefs in Hamilton.<\/p>\n

As well as the three qualifying final winners, the highest-ranked loser also gets a ticket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Crusaders have kept alive their stunning Super Rugby Pacific finals record, the defending champions steamrolling the Blues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,29897,348471,348472,64903,760,85,48013,211101,348470],"class_list":["post-718635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crusaders","tag-david-havili","tag-johnny-mcnicholl","tag-qualifying-final","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-pacific","tag-the-blues","tag-the-crusaders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718635","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=718635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}