The Crusaders' dream of winning an eighth title in their most extraordinary season of Super Rugby remains alive. They will meet the Reds in the Final next week.

The men from Christchurch easily accounted (29-10) for a very poor Stormers team at Newlands, in Cape Town, on Saturday.

They will now face the Reds in the Final in Brisbane next Saturday - where they will hope to place the seal on a season in which they played all their games away from Christchurch and crisscrossed the globe.

Most of the Stormers' problems started in the set pieces - where the Crusaders managed to demolish and already iffish scrum of the home team, while the visitors also effectively nullified any advantage Andries Bekker might have hoped for in the line-outs.

Add to that the very predictable and one-dimensional Stormers backline, along with some very poor discipline and the home team was simply never on the game.

Plenty of credit should also go to the effective tactics and execution of the Crusaders, who showed their class and qualities to continue scrambling on defence even when the game was well over as a contest.

The game had it all - an intercept, a classic Sonny Bill Williams offload that results in a try and some classic Dan Carter execution - both in terms of goal-kicking and dictating the terms.

But the men from Christchurch were assisted in their cause by the error-riddled performance of a Stormers team that looked a spent force early in the first half.

The scorers:

For the Stormers:
Try: Habana
Con: Grant
Pen: Grant

For the Crusaders:
Tries: Maitland, Fruean
Cons: Carter 2
Pens: Carter 5

Teams:

Stormers: 15 Conrad Jantjes, 14 Gio Aplon, 13 Jaque Fourie, 12 Jean de Villiers, 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Peter Grant, 9 Louis Schreuder, 8 Nick Koster, 7 Francois Louw, 6 Schalk Burger (captain), 5 Andries Bekker, 4 Rynhardt Elstadt, 3 Brok Harris, 2 Tiaan Liebenberg, 1 Wicus Blaauw
Replacements: 16 Deon Fourie, 17 Steven Kitshoff, 18 Anton van Zyl, 19 Schalk Brits, 20 Nic Groom, 21 Juan de Jongh, 22 Johann Sadie.

Crusaders: 15 Tom Marshall, 14 Sean Maitland, 13 Robbie Fruean, 12 Sonny Bill Williams, 11 Zac Guildford, 10 Dan Carter, 9 Andy Ellis, 8 Kieran Read, 7 Richie McCaw (captain), 6 George Whitelock, 5 Sam Whitelock, 4 Brad Thorn, 3 Owen Franks, 2 Corey Flynn, 1 Wyatt Crockett.
Replacements: 16 Quentin MacDonald, 17 Ben Franks, 18 Luke Romano, 19 Matt Todd, 20 Kahn Fotuali'i, 21 Matt Berquist, 22 Ryan Crotty.

Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)
Assistant referees: Jaco Peyper (South Africa), Stefan Breytenbach (South Africa)
TMO: Shaun Veldsman (South Africa)

By Paul Dobson