Lam, especially, was impressive in the first quarter, often making key tackles and running powerfully in broken play.
The one blot on the Hurricanes forward effort came in the scrums where they struggled to provide a stable platform against the tightly-knit Crusaders unit. In fact, it was not until Ben May and Michael Bent took up the propping roles later in the match that the ship was steadied to an acceptable standard.
The Hurricanes backs might have lacked the fluency on attack of their Crusaders counterparts but under the astute direction of promising first-five Beauden Barrett they were certainly prepared to run hard and straight, none more so than midfielders Charlie Ngatai and Alapata Leilia and utility player Andre Taylor, who made the initial break when Barrett scored his team's only try late in the game.There were some nice touches from All Black Cory Jane too.
The Crusaders were pretty much what you'd expect the best-performed team in Super rugby history to be.There was nothing too flashy about their play but they executed their plans clinically, particularly in the forwards where the Franks brothers, Owen and Ben, Quentin McDonald and Corey Flynn gave them staggering depth in their front row and where the Whitelock brothers, lock Samuel, and loosies George and Luke were into everything at a great rate of knots.
Remarkably, a fourth Whitelock in Adam - all of them growing up on a farm only 30 minutes from Mangatainoka - was an integral part of a Crusaders backline which often stretched the Hurricanes defence with the slickness of their passing and their speed of foot.
