Richard Loe: Blues need to rediscover that swagger

It's hard to avoid the stark difference between our two best-performed Super 14 franchises, the Crusaders and the Blues.

The Crusaders, with their clinical dispatch of the Brumbies on Friday night, are back to their best and are everybody's favourite to retain the title. The Blues, the only other New Zealand franchise to win a title, are heading into yet another review of why they have made only one semifinal in the last eight years.

There are a lot of different elements to the Blues' problems but I am going to focus on just three - dominance, politics and selections, with the last two sometimes related.

Back when Auckland was the premier rugby power in New Zealand, they poached players and played with absolute dominance and arrogance. But it worked. They need to get back to something like that.

Instead, what has happened is they have become the franchise most affected by internal politics. The problems between Auckland, North Harbour and Northland are well-known but continue to affect them in a way that doesn't happen elsewhere.

That arrogance has gone and it's been replaced by political convenience - which has hurt the Blues. It's time they just knuckled down to regaining their dominance. I am not calling for David Nucifora's head by any stretch of the imagination but, in the future, there must be local coaches who can be employed to do the business.

Even more than that, the Blues have to regain the single-mindedness they used to have. They need to select and retain the best players and not be affected by any political considerations or poor selections. Pick the best team, even if they all come from Auckland. Just say: here's the rules, if you don't like it, get over it. And then win.

Selections are their other big problem. Everyone can rattle off large numbers of Blues players who have gone to other franchises and performed well. I'd mention just three names from this season - Mose Tuiali'i, Sione Lauaki and Sam Tuitupou. All three have performed better than anyone the Blues have got in their positions.

Now, you can say that the Blues players need to accept responsibility for performance and fair enough. But sometimes those players have just been poor selections. The players can take some of the blame. I felt that Tasesa Lavea's basic skills weren't up to Super 14 standard, for example. But someone has to select them first.

Compare that with the Crusaders and the selection at halfback, for example. Robbie Deans had a promising halfback coming up in local rugby, Andrew Ellis. But he also had relatively inexperienced halfback Jamie Nutbrown.

He needed experience. Enter Kevin Senio, who played against the Brumbies on Friday, and Nutbrown was let go.

But I'd bet Ellis will play in the semifinal and probably the final. He's overtaken Senio this year. Good selection. Good player management. Good results.