Maitland rips apart Brumbies
Crusaders winger Sean Maitland terrorised the Brumbies defence as he scored four tries in the 52-10 rout on Friday.
By Tony Curtis - Twitter: @SkySportsTC
Last Updated: 11/03/11 8:42pm
Crusaders winger Sean Maitland terrorised the Brumbies defence as he scored four tries in the 52-10 rout on Friday.
Having scored once before the interval, Maitland went on to score a second-half hat-trick as the Crusaders recorded a second straight win at their temporary home of Trafalgar Park.
Sonny Bill Williams also continued his impressive start to life in Super Rugby as he crossed twice, while off-season signing Israel Dagg touched down once and Dan Carter slotted over 20 points.
The Crusaders had found themselves trailing 10-6 after 20 minutes - with Toulon-bound Matt Giteau scoring a try, conversion and penalty.
However the Crusaders cut loose in emphatic style to secure the victory .
And skipper Kieran Read was pleased his side were able to kick-on from last week's stuttering win over the Waratahs.
"We talked about it all week and that 20 minutes after half-time really showed that we can put teams away," Read said.
"You've got to work teams out and work them over before you can put it wide so in that second half it really came off. The boys played well and I'm really stoked about the way we played tonight."
Brumbies captain Giteau believes the Crusaders' better work at the breakdown had been crucial.
"It was just turnover ball and for some reason we were just lazy really," Giteau said.
"We're talking a lot at the moment, we're just not acting on it so it's pretty disappointing.
"We were still pretty happy that the score was as close as it was at halftime, then in the second half we didn't have any ball and when we did we turned it over and you just can't do that."