Sometimes you just have to be grateful for a win. The Crusaders' 30-7 victory over the Force at AMI Stadium tonight looks comprehensive enough on the scoreboard but in reality it was a game which degenerated as the minutes ticked by. To take the glass half-full perspective would be to acknowledge the Crusaders, though inaccurate,... Continue Reading →

The Springbok training camp concluded in Durban yesterday and probably the busiest participants were the medical team that treated a slew of players battered and bruised from Super Rugby, and by the end of it, there was more bad news for lock Eben Etzebeth and confirmation that Francois Steyn has a chronic knee condition. Etzebeth,... Continue Reading →

New Zealand Rugby General Manager Rugby Neil Sorensen said that following discussions with the Crusaders and with Guildford, the national union has agreed to terminate his contract effective immediately. Guildford was contracted to the end of the 2014 Investec Super Rugby season but is now free to take up a new contract he has signed... Continue Reading →

The Crusaders have made just one change to their team to play the Force, with Kieran Read returning to play for the first time in six weeks. Read, who has fully recovered from both the concussion sustained in the Chiefs game and the cold that kept him out of contention last week, will captain the... Continue Reading →

A well-prepared Junior Springboks squad departs on Monday evening to New Zealand where they will participate in the IRB Junior World Championship (JWC). The JWC event will be staged from 2 to 20 June in Auckland and surrounding areas. Twelve teams, including the South Africa Under-20’s as well as defending champions England, 2013 runners-up Wales,... Continue Reading →

The Crusaders have got their groove back with a 32-30 bonus point win over the Highlanders in an enthralling southern derby tonight. Some white hot action on the pitch was a marked contrast with the freezing southerly front which had passed over Dunedin just before kick off. It took a desperate tackle on winger Patrick... Continue Reading →

Todd Blackadder must despise this time of the year. The All Blacks wider training camps might be deemed a necessary evil by the New Zealand Rugby Union ahead of the June test series but Crusaders coach Blackadder must wish he could march into their Wellington headquarters, put a flame to this segment of the calendar... Continue Reading →

This week, the Sharks will go from their toughest to their favourite opponent from New Zealand when they travel to Albany to take on the Blues in their final Vodacom Super Rugby tour match on Friday morning. Last weekend’s win over the Crusaders was their first ever in Christchurch, but on Friday, the Cell C... Continue Reading →

1. Never e-mail an MP3. If you've never heard of SoundCloud, why should I bother listening to your MP3, which clutters my inbox, it indicates you're not savvy enough to know how technology works. 2. No away messages. Is that really how little your job means to you, that when you're away from your desk... Continue Reading →

The Crusaders meet their southern rivals, the Highlanders, in Dunedin this Saturday night and Head Coach Todd Blackadder has named a team with six changes from last week. The entire front row has been replaced so that Tim Perry, Ben Funnell and Nepo Laulala take the starting spots and Wyatt Crockett, Corey Flynn and Owen... Continue Reading →

IN watching the 14 (and occasionally 13) – man Sharks defy the odds to beat the mighty Crusaders in Christchurch for the first time, I was reminded of the first occasion I learned that a numerical advantage in team sport does not necessarily add up to the win that it should. I was a callow... Continue Reading →

I'm sick of hearing about it, it's so 1999. That's right, piracy in music is dead, and if you keep trumpeting it as a cause for the decline in recording revenues you're stupid or work at a label or both. Because the only people bothering to steal these days are those who never planned to... Continue Reading →

World champion Springboks Victor Matfield and Schalk Burger as well as two former Blitzbok stars, Cornal Hendricks and S’bura Sithole, are included in a 36-man squad to attend a national training camp in Durban from 25 to 28 May, the South African Rugby Union announced on Monday. Cell C Sharks back Sithole and Hendricks, the... Continue Reading →

HEART 104.9FM TOP 30 - 17 May 2014 POS ARTIST SONG TITLE MOVE L/W PEAK WEEKS NOTES 1 DJ Cassidy feat. Robin Thicke & Jessie J Calling All Hearts NC 1 1 (3) 11 Last Week's #1 2 Citizen's Banned feat. Diggy Bongz The Liberation's Over NC 2 2 7 3 Jonathan Rubain Reason To... Continue Reading →

No matter where Ryan Crotty ventures he must field the same question. What has changed for the Crusaders? Each week the Crusaders' captain's reply, and those of his team-mates, contains a familiar narrative. After the March 28 loss to the Hurricanes, which left the Crusaders swimming among the Super Rugby table's bottom feeders, the players... Continue Reading →