Rugby Union: Super 12

There's not much arguing with the statistics - by any interpretation the 2004 Super 12 final will be remembered as an extraordinary affair. Records were broken; 95 points were scored with only nine of them separating the two teams at the end; the whitewash was crossed 13 times; fond farewells were bid. ACT Brumbies 47 Canterbury Crusaders 38. Extraordinary.

And yet. And yet. Unless you were a Brumbies fan celebrating what is their second title, there was something unsatisfactory about it all. The defence, for one. Over here, much has been made of the apparently optional nature of the tackling in Super 12 rugby, and this showpiece between the two best will have done little to silence the critics. The Crusaders are usually exempt from such criticism - hence the four titles they have won in the competition's nine-year history - but yesterday they seemed to have caught a terminal case of the disease.

And on one thing critics and fans of the Super 12 are all agreed - if you must miss tackles, not to mention cough up possession, you really don't want to be playing this Brumbies team. Then again, fans of the Super 12 might well argue that it's no coincidence that teams miss tackles when they're playing the Brumbies. And they'd have a point.

Despite the flash statistics, this was no contest. Rarely can one team have so comprehensively thrashed another in a grand final of any kind. The Brumbies were up 7-0 inside the first minute, when Joe Roff capitalised on Ben Blair's embarrassing failure to clear danger. Roff would score again late in the second half to put paid to any idle thoughts of a Crusaders comeback with his fifty-seventh try in Super 12, beating Christian Cullen's record. The 29,000 crowd in Canberra chanted his name on what was his last appearance.

But it would have been an unlikely comeback, and here's why. The score became 12-0 after five minutes, then 19-0 after 11, 26-0 after 17 and 33-0 after 19. The Crusaders were reeling, scarcely able to believe that a champion side with such All Black terminators as Richie McCaw and Reuben Thorne could ever look so soft.

Still, if you're going to find yourself 33-0 down, it might as well be after 20 minutes. The Crusaders brought on Andrew Mehrtens in the twenty-fourth and began the long trek back into the game. Two tries brought them to 33-14 by half-time, but Mark Gerrard completed a hat-trick just after the break to bring up 40 for the Brumbies. If the contest hadn't been over after 19, it was surely over now. But the Crusaders scored twice more to get to 40-28, before Roff's second with 10 minutes left. Caleb Ralph went over at the death, but the Brumbies were already celebrating by then.