4 Try Crusaders March On

Crusaders 28 - YMCA 7

It didn't take long for Crusaders' forwards to impose themselves on this last home league game of the season. Ipswich had the benefit of the wind and slope in the first half and came close to scoring, but from the resulting scrums Crusaders forwards were able to drive up field, a bulldozing run by Josh Stuart took the ball out of Crusaders 22 a good lay back and the ball was spun wide to Barker, the fly half made ground up the wing and with a delicate chip over the defence, he managed to recover an unfriendly bounce one handed from behind him and and give the supporting Triston Smith the perfect inside pass for a classic try, Loone converted.
Ipswich came back strongly but good defence from Ben Barker, Stewart Cameron and Triston Smith kept the visitors out until Henry Crush finally forced his way over, converted by Tom Potter 7-7.
This was now end to end stuff with Crusaders forwards dominating the scrum and Ipswich edging the lineouts. Crusaders second try soon arrived with their forwards having driven Ipswich back into their 22, Ben Barker created space for himself with a dummy before running in under the posts, converted by Rob Loone.
Crusaders third try was somewhat fortunate when following more forward pressure in their own half the Ipswich failed to field a bouncing ball . Rob Loone had an easy pickup to score under the posts and converted his own try 21 - 7.
Ipswich looked dangerous when they pushed the ball wide but they could not take advantage of a Crusaders forward in the sin bin and two timely replacements with Peter Blinkhorn and Charley Hawkins shored up Crusaders defence.
Ipswich were enduring severe pressure in their 22 and Crusaders bonus point try came towards the end of the match when Josh Stuart touched down from a pushover scrum. Crusaders run of 4 wins out off five can be contributed to Ben Barker who having come back from a long injury and have created scoring chances since he took up the fly half roll.