Victory validates Tuitavake's decision to stay

Blues 26
Brumbies 15

If Blues midfielder Anthony Tuitavake couldn't represent New Zealand at sevens at the Commonwealth Games, he wanted to watch his mates win gold.

He missed both targets but struck pay dirt as the Blues began their struggle out of Super 14 trouble with a win against the Brumbies.

Tuitavake turned down an offer to add to the Games gold he won at Manchester four years ago, believing the sevens fitness schedule would strip him of too much weight to combat other Super 14 midfielders.

He watched the television broadcast of his old sevens mates win their semifinal on Friday night before the sleeping pills kicked in, and he missed the gold medal performance against England.

There were a couple of early drowsy lapses from Tuitavake on Saturday at Eden Park before he put his stamp on the match in a powerful tussle with heavyweight Brumbies skipper Stirling Mortlock.

Mortlock created a few early difficulties before Tuitavake and the Blues tightened their defences to hold the visitors' threats. The 23-year-old also showed the attacking sting that made him such a threat during last year's NPC.

He raced 45m for a try after a turnover to send the Blues to the break with an 18-0 lead and a huge psychological boost in their bid to break the patchy start to the Super 14. As the Blues battled away in the second half, Tuitavake made the telling bust and offload in the move that gave Isa Nacewa the try that sealed the victory.

All the relief showed through the Blues afterwards as they took some confidence rather than hangdog looks to their after-match gathering. It had been a long fortnight dealing with the bye, public scrutiny and their own uncertainty after three defeats in the opening four matches.

Tuitavake had taken plenty of solace from the result and the tussles with the quality Brumbies backline.

"Stirling Mortlock is a very big unit. He is as big as Tana [Umaga] and as tough as. I took my eye off him a couple of times and he got through, and with class players like that you can't afford that. We needed to be tighter.

"But when we fixed what we needed to out on the field, when we made sure we did the things we had to, our confidence started to return.

"It was a physical game, very fast, and when we got fast ball, our eyes lit up because we like that sort of stuff."

Tuitavake said he took about three weeks to decide whether to accept the invitation to join the Commonwealth Games sevens squad.

"It was very tempting because it is a game I love. You get a lot of space and sevens got me to where I am today, so it was tempting to get back into that tight mix. It was close but with the injuries we had [midfielders Luke McAlister and Ben Atiga] I had to stick around," he said.

"I had also worked hard doing a lot of pre-season work with the Blues and also put on some weight."

Tuitavake added 8kg to be 93kg and was conscious he needed to keep that physique to deal with opponents such as Mortlock in defence. It was a weekend when both Tuitavake and the sevens were winners.