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crusaders

n. (plural of crusader English)

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Crusaders (rugby union)

The Crusaders (formerly the Canterbury Crusaders and officially called the BNZ Crusaders for sponsorship reasons) are a New Zealand professional rugby union team based in Christchurch that competes in the Super Rugby competition. They are the most successful team in Super Rugby history with seven titles ( 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006 and 2008). The franchise represents the Buller, Canterbury, Mid-Canterbury, South Canterbury, Tasman and West Coast provincial Rugby Unions. Their main home ground is AMI Stadium, formerly known as Jade Stadium and before that, Lancaster Park.

Formed in 1996 to represent the upper South Island of New Zealand in the Super 12, the Crusaders struggled in their first season and finished last. Their performance improved in 1997 and the team finished sixth (out of twelve teams). The team went on to win all three titles from 1998 to 2000 despite each final being played away from home. They again won the competition in 2002 after going through the season unbeaten. In the following two seasons, they again reached the final, although they were beaten on both occasions. 2005 was the last season of the Super 12 before its expansion. After finishing top of the table in that season, the Crusaders went on to host the final in which they defeated the Waratahs. As a result of winning their fifth Super 12 title, the Crusaders were given the trophy to keep. In 2006, the Crusaders hosted the Hurricanes in the inaugural Super 14 final and won 19–12. In 2008 the Crusaders hosted the final at AMI Stadium against the Waratahs, and won the match 20–12 to claim their seventh title.

In addition to winning more Super Rugby titles than any other team, the franchise also holds several competition records, including most points in a game and most tries in a game, both achieved in their 96–19 victory over the Waratahs in 2002. Ironically the Crusaders also hold the record for the least points scored in a game when they were defeated by the Highlanders 6–0 in 2009. They have also scored the most points (541) and most tries (71) in one season, both achieved in 2005. Individual players also hold records: Andrew Mehrtens for most points in a Super 12 season (206 in 1998), and Rico Gear for most tries in a season (15 in 2005). Twelve players have played over 100 games for the franchise: Justin Marshall, Reuben Thorne, Caleb Ralph, Greg Somerville, Leon MacDonald, Richie McCaw, Chris Jack, Dan Carter, Andrew Ellis, Kieran Read, Wyatt Crockett and Sam Whitelock. They also have three International Rugby Board Players of the Year: Dan Carter (2005), (2012), (2015), Richie McCaw (2006), (2009) and (2010) and Kieran Read (2013)

Crusaders (DC Comics)

The Crusaders is a team of DC Comics superheroes. The team was created by Bob Rozakis and Dick Ayers in the pages of Freedom Fighters #7 (March 1977). The characters serve as stand-ins for several Marvel Comics superheroes from the 1940s.

Crusaders (guerrilla)

Crusaders (, also known as Škripari) were a Croatian anti-communist guerrilla army. Their activities started after the capitulation of the Independent State of Croatia, which was at the time a Nazi puppet state, in May 1945, toward the end of World War II. The Crusaders' activity ended in 1950.

Crusaders (Marvel Comics)

The Crusaders is a group of fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The characters first appear in The Invaders #14 (March 1977) and were created by Roy Thomas, Jack Kirby, and Frank Robbins.

Crusaders (novel)

Crusaders is a novel by the British author Richard T Kelly published in 2008.

Usage examples of "crusaders".

The burning sun of Syria had not yet attained its highest point in the horizon, when a knight of the Red Cross, who had left his distant northern home and joined the host of the Crusaders in Palestine, was pacing slowly along the sandy deserts which lie in the vicinity of the Dead Sea, or, as it is called, the Lake Asphaltites, where the waves of the Jordan pour themselves into an inland sea, from which there is no discharge of waters.

All told, the crusaders should total over thirty thousand when they meet the Tuigan.

Besides, do you want a ship full of crusaders to die because of two men?

Your Highness, and the true crusaders will gladly die for the causes you champion .

Bards readily took up their lutes and wove stories about the crusaders, always vastly outnumbered and fighting for their lives.

In retaining their own unwieldy defensive armour, the Northern Crusaders seemed to set at defiance the nature of the climate and country to which they had come to war.

Such discords, and particularly those betwixt Richard and Philip of France, created disputes and obstacles which impeded every active measure proposed by the heroic though impetuous Richard, while the ranks of the Crusaders were daily thinned, not only by the desertion of individuals, but of entire bands, headed by their respective feudal leaders, who withdrew from a contest in which they had ceased to hope for success.

The effects of the climate became, as usual, fatal to soldiers from the north, and the more so that the dissolute license of the Crusaders, forming a singular contrast to the principles and purpose of their taking up arms, rendered them more easy victims to the insalubrious influence of burning heat and chilling dews.

The camp of the Crusaders was surrounded, and almost besieged, by clouds of light cavalry, resembling swarms of wasps, easily crushed when they are once grasped, but furnished with wings to elude superior strength, and stings to inflict harm and mischief.

A considerable band of Scottish warriors had joined the Crusaders, and had naturally placed themselves under the command of the English monarch, being, like his native troops, most of them of Saxon and Norman descent, speaking the same languages, possessed, some of them, of English as well as Scottish demesnes, and allied in some cases by blood and intermarriage.

But upon his illness, and the disadvantageous circumstances in which the Crusaders were placed, the national disunion between the various bands united in the Crusade, began to display itself, just as old wounds break out afresh in the human body when under the influence of disease or debility.

Appearances here did indeed promise no breach of the laws of mortification, to which the Crusaders, according to the opinion expressed by him of Gilsland, ought to subject themselves.

The exhortation was echoed from post to post, for it was the duty of the sentinels to raise this cry from time to time upon their periodical watch, that the host of the Crusaders might always have in their remembrance the purpose of their being in arms.

The rough eloquence and determined expression of the military monarch at once roused the drooping spirits of the Crusaders, reanimated their devotion, and, fixing their attention on the principal object of the expedition, made most of them who were present blush for having been moved by such petty subjects of complaint as had before engrossed them.

There was no one with him, De Vaux having been sent to Ascalon to bring up reinforcements and supplies of military munition, and most of his other attendants being occupied in different departments, all preparing for the re-opening of hostilities, and for a grand preparatory review of the army of the Crusaders, which was to take place the next day.