Crusaders survive Blues scare

The Crusaders are back on track for a Super 14 home semi-final after an exhilarating 26-22 win over the Blues at AMI Stadium on Friday.

Corey Flynn had an eventful game for the Crusaders with two tries and a spell in the sin-bin during his game.

After seeing a 12-0 lead wiped out by two excellent Blues tries, the Crusaders rallied and survived a late fightback to keep their title drive going.

It was all Crusaders at the start of the match and after several close calls they got the breakthrough with Leon MacDonald powering through before offloading to Richie McCaw to crss for the try after 12 minutes.

Flynn, who scored two tries and was sin-binned in an extraordinary game, took an offload from the excellent Kieran Read to score a try, which Stephen Brett ought to have converted.

Flynn in

Just two minutes later Flynn then allow Jerome Kaino to feed Wulf for a try in the corner, which Evans converted from the touchline to make it 12-7.

The Blues took the lead early in the second half when Nick Williams charged onto the to touch the base of the post under a pile of bodies - and Evans kicked the Blues in front for the first time with the conversion.

The lead lasted just two minutes before Flynn rounded off a length-of-the-field move by jinking inside the last defender and crossing under the posts.

Brett missed two relatively easy penalties and Evans showed him how to do it with a brilliant 50m shot that made the score 19-17 on the hour mark.

Ti'i Paulo - on while Flynn was cooling off in the sin-bin for a high tackle - rounded off a superb piece of work by Maitland for the crucial fourth try. Brett made no mistake with the conversion this time, taking his team 26-17 ahead.

But the Blues were not done, and Smith crossed in the left-hand corner with six minutes to go. Evans' conversion just did not come back in though, meaning the Blues, now dominating, had to score another try.

A penalty with three minutes remaining would have been the ideal opportunity to build the necessary attacking platform, but Evans inexcusably kicked it dead. He may have kicked the Blues' season to death with it.