Crusaders thrash the Hurricanes to keep their home playoff hopes alive

Friday, 29 May 2026

At One New Zealand Stadium, Christchurch: Crusaders 47 (Sevu Reece tries 9min, 77min, Noah Hotham try 25min, Johnny McNicholl try 31min, Christian Lio-Willie try 35min, Manumau Letiu try 62min, Kyle Preston try 72min; Taha Kemara 5 con, Reece con) Hurricanes 14 (Brad Shields try 12min, Pouri Rakete-Stones; Callum Harkin 2 con). HT: 26-7

The Crusaders might just get a chance to put their vaunted home playoff record on the line.

They've done all they can, hammering the top-seeded but under-strength Hurricanes 47-14 in Christchurch on Friday night.

Now, they must wait and cross their fingers and toes, hoping the Chiefs knock over the Blues in Hamilton on Saturday night.

If their nemesis do them a favour, the Crusaders will surge past the Blues and secure the No 3 seed, which would grant them a first round playoff fixture at One New Zealand Stadium next Saturday afternoon.

Cue ominous music. The Crusaders have, after all, won all 32 playoff games they've hosted.

Regardless, centurion Sevu Reece scored two tries and they locked up a top four finish, which brings the ‘Lucky Loser’ card and a guaranteed semifinal into play.

Days after losing fullback Will Jordan and lock Scott Barrett for the season, there will be more sweating on injuries as they chase a ninth title in 10 years, however.

Most notably, All Blacks prop Fletcher Newell departed with a worrying leg injury half an hour into the match, while No 7 Ethan Blackadder was scratched ahead of kickoff and No 10 Rivez Reihana (concussion) lasted just eight minutes.

Indeed, having rested the banged up Leicester Fainga’anuku, the Crusaders were also far from full strength on a night the Hurricanes had zilch to play for and rested a ton of cattle.

It goes a long way to explaining how the Crusaders rolled to a 26-7 lead at halftime, running in four tries to one in front of another 25,000 strong sell out crowd.

And it explains how the match became a error-riddled shemozzle after the break, as both teams threw the ball around willy-nilly and the fixture lost its intensity and any resemblance of shape.

Just the second Crusaders winger to notch 100 games, Reece marked his milestone by opening the scoring in the ninth minute en route to another quality performance in the No 11 jersey.

The Hurricanes hit back immediately through captain Brad Shields, who dived over after taking a smart offload from gun halfback Cam Roigard.

Playing his first game back from a calf injury, Roigard was sharp in 40 minutes of action, typically threatening with his running game when the Hurricanes weren’t defending wave after wave of Crusaders attack.

Prop Tyrel Lomax was also yanked at halftime by Hurricanes head coach Clark Laidlaw as he fully switched his attention to next week.

The game was as good as over after Noah Hotham, Christian Lio-Willie and Johnny McNicholl ran in tries on the back of a wealth of possession and territory to cap the first 40 minutes.

Hotham’s try was the pick of the bunch, the final product of a sweeping counter-attack that started with wing Chay Fihaki pilfering a ball deep inside the Crusaders half.

Captain David Havili was instrumental in the break, selling a dummy and bumping off a defender during the scorching 80-metre move.

Like the Hurricanes, the Crusaders turned to their bench early and often after the break, as the match restarted with low-hanging smoke lingering in the air.

Twenty years after the infamous fog final between the same teams, pyrotechnics were to blame for the poor visibility this time round.

Perhaps it played a part in the mountain of errors both teams made, before the Crusaders finally managed to make some passes stick, and ran in three more tries to blow the Hurricanes off the park and improve to 4-0 in their new stadium.

Rookie Tasman centre Cooper Roberts, who is highly rated by the Crusaders and is expected to play a big part next year after Dallas McLeod and Braydon Ennor depart, flashed his talent after replacing Havili in the 46th minute.

Fittingly, the hosts allowed Reece to attempt to convert his 77th minute try, which he calmly slotted from the sideline.