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New Zealand's Canterbury Crusaders hammered Australia's Queensland Reds 32-12 at Christchurch to stay in the hunt for a place in the Super 14 semi-finals.

The defending champions scored five tries to two to secure a valuable bonus point and a chance of making the playoffs if they win their final match against Auckland next week.

The Crusaders had the match sewn up at halftime when they led 20-0 on the back of tries by Thomas Waldrom, Owen Franks and Tim Bateman.

They secured their bonus point when Jason Macdonald scored shortly after the re-start then opened up a 32-0 lead when Sean Maitland crossed.

They failed to score again, however, and Queensland hit back with two late consolation tries from Ben Tapuai and Greg Holmes.

"It would have been nice to finish them all off but we wanted five points out of the game and we got that so we're very happy," said Canterbury captain Richie McCaw (pictured).

"We wanted to go out and not let them off the hook. We let a couple of soft tries in."

Lions 27-22 Otago Highlanders

The Lions staged a second-half comeback to beat the Otago Highlanders 27-22 in their Super 14 clash in Johannesburg.

The victory was their fourth in 12 matches and helped the home team rise to 11th in the table, on the same points as the Highlanders but with an inferior points difference.

Otago went behind when wing Michael Killian crossed for a sixth-minute try after Willem Alberts had stolen possession and set off on a storming run.

The visitors hit back though with tries from flanker Alando Soakai, wing Ben Smith and scrum-half Jimmy Cowan.

Fullback Israel Dagg, who converted the second and third tries, extended the lead to 22-5 with a penalty early in the second half.

Alberts then inspired the Lions fightback by diving over from close range after a break by Jano Vermaak.

Loose forward Alberts also had a hand in Vermaak's try seven minutes later as he burst through a couple of tackles before feeding the livewire scrum-half.

Then, in the 72nd minute, Lions wing Louis Ludik sped into the Otago 22 and handed the ball to Earl Rose to score.

Fly-half Andre Pretorius booted the conversion and struck again with a superb late drop goal from just inside Otago's half.

Reuters