Mehrtens adds insult to Larkham injury

Canterbury Crusaders 31 ACT Brumbies 13

Having had next year's World Cup taken away from them by the administrators, New Zealand's Canterbury's Crusaders always had extra motivation for yesterday's Super 12 final against Australia's ACT Brumbies. And, at the end, they had the ammunition too, Andrew Mehrtens kicking 16 points in the 31-13 victory.

Given the wet and windy conditions at the Jade Stadium, it was a match with high quality, worthy of the best two clubs in the southern hemisphere. For the Crusaders, now four-time champions after successes in 1998, '99 and 2000, it capped a remarkable season: they made it an unprecedented 13 wins out of 13 games.

Defeat for the Brumbies and Australia was compounded when fly-half Stephen Larkham left the field after after half an hour with what appeared to be a serious elbow injury and, pending X-rays, he could miss the upcoming Test season.

Mehrtens had kicked a 39th-minute penalty for an 11-3 half-time lead and added another in the 44th minute to make it 14-3, but in a frenetic second half the Brumbies, champions last year, looked the more dangerous but were held at bay by some tenacious defence.

They did manage to break through the Crusaders ranks in the 72nd minute when Andrew Walker intercepted a pass from inside his own half and raced away to make the game a one-point affair at 14-13. The scoreline lasted just a minute before Mehrtens drop-kicked a goal from 35 metres before Calep Ralph gave the final scoreline a flattering look with two late tries in the last five minutes.

The Brumbies captain, scrum-half George Gregan, was full of praise for the champions. "They showed why they are the best side. We couldn't get our hands on the ball in the first half and they managed to create some fantastic turnovers. The best team won tonight and we can only take our hats off to them."

Playing into a blustery south-westerly, the Crusaders enjoyed an 80 per cent territorial advantage in the opening 15 minutes. During that time, they created, but wasted three try-scoring chances.

It was against the run of play when Walker kicked a 40-metre penalty in the 20th minute from the first Brumbies foray into foreign territory. Mehrtens levelled the scores with a penalty in the 27th minute before Marika Vunibaka scored the opening try four minutes later. It came from a sweeping movement which ended with Vunibaka finishing off an angled run of 35 metres to the corner before a Mehrtens penalty made it 11-3 at half-time.

The South African full-back Thinus Delport has signed a two-year contract with Gloucester, starting on 1 July.