Following a 36-20 victory for the Crusaders over the Blues , here are our five takeaways from the Super Rugby Pacific encounter at One NZ Stadium on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The top line<\/p>\n
The Crusaders produced a stunning second-half display to defeat their biggest rivals and move a step closer towards confirming a play-off place. Inspired by the brilliant Leicester Fainga\u2019anuku and supported by the likes of Ethan Blackadder, Jamie Hannah and Christian Lio-Willie, they overwhelmed the Blues in the second period to claim a much-needed success.<\/p>\n
Following a dreadful opening 10 minutes, which saw errors aplenty, the match settled down and tries from George Bower, on his 100th appearance for the franchise, and Hannah opened up a 12-3 lead for the hosts.<\/p>\n
To the Blues\u2019 credit, they hit back through AJ Lam\u2019s and Sam Nock\u2019s quick-fire tries, and led at the break despite Stephen Perofeta\u2019s missed conversions, but the home side lifted the intensity after the interval.<\/p>\n
Scores from Kyle Preston, Sevu Reece and George Bell \u2013 the last coming while they were down to 13 men following Kurtis MacDonald\u2019s red card and Jack Sexton\u2019s sin-binning \u2013 earned them a deserved bonus-point triumph.<\/p>\n
One-man show<\/p>\n
It is hard not to talk about Fainga\u2019anuku at the moment as the flanker\/centre\/wing put in yet another stellar showing. He played the first two positions on Friday, starting in the pack before shifting into the backline in the second period, and he was utterly irrepressible throughout.<\/p>\n
In truth, for a large part of the opening half, it felt like Fainga\u2019anuku<\/a> was playing at both flanker and centre given his involvements close to the ruck and in the wider channels. He was utterly relentless, producing an inventive kick for Hannah\u2019s try before breaking through the heart of the Blues defence by shrugging off three opposition forwards.<\/p>\n The 26-year-old also did plenty in defence and earned two breakdown turnovers but, after all that work, he looked spent at the break. It was the same last weekend against the Hurricanes in Wellington, where the hybrid duly slowed down after the interval and was less influential.<\/p>\n Rob Penney has evidently learned from that and moved him into the backline at the start of the second half and that reduction in his workload paid dividends. Fainga\u2019anuku picked his moments in attack and defence but still maintained his high level, with his grubber through for Reece\u2019s try the highlight. The longer this experiment goes on, the more it seems like a genuine option for the All Blacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Barrett\u2019s benching<\/p>\n Sometimes players become better when they aren\u2019t on the pitch and watching Perofeta stutter his way through 50 minutes at fly-half, it felt like that for Beauden Barrett. The All Blacks centurion has not necessarily been poor recently but some surprising errors have interspersed what have otherwise been classy performances.<\/p>\n Barrett has duly found himself among the replacements over the past two rounds with Perofeta given an opportunity in the 10 shirt, but that proved to be was a mistake from Vern Cotter in Christchurch. While the Blues<\/a> remained close on the scoreboard, the starting pivot failed to get two conversions \u2013 one of them the schoolboy error of being timed out on the shot clock \u2013 kicked out on the full twice and failed to get the attack going.<\/p>\n The visitors were only 19-13 in arrears when Barrett came on and Perofeta shifted to full-back, but the Crusaders<\/a> were starting to get on top at that point and those execution issues provided those little momentum shifts to the hosts.<\/p>\n It made Barrett\u2019s job much harder when he entered the field and, while the attack looked slicker when they had the opportunities with ball in hand, the Crusaders\u2019 excellent in that second half rendered his influence moot. We suspect a return to 10 will be on the cards for the All Blacks star when they face the Hurricanes next weekend.<\/p>\n Crusaders player ratings: \u2018Ludicrous\u2019 Leicester Fainga\u2019anuku will have All Blacks boss \u2018salivating\u2019 while bench implosion almost cost \u2018Saders<\/a><\/p>\n TMO involvement<\/p>\n It has been mentioned before but, if you are going to speed up the game certain things are going to be missed. Providing everyone is happy with that then it is a positive for the sport, but the Blues may not be particularly satisfied that the Crusaders\u2019 second try was not reviewed.<\/p>\n In the grand scheme of things, it may not have looked particularly important, with the hosts claiming a 16-point win, but the early tries certainly laid the platform for Penney\u2019s men. They went 12-3 ahead when Hannah, who looked suspiciously offside, latched on to Fainga\u2019anuku\u2019s kick over the top and touched down.<\/p>\n Replays seemed to show the Crusaders lock in front of his team-mate but the TMO did not intervene and the try stood. It is unlikely fans would accept an incident like that not being reviewed in a high-stakes Test match so, while Super Rugby\u2019s approach is admirable, there have been some inaccuracies.<\/p>\n