First Take: Bowden shows resilience in Blues' loss

Daniel Bowden. Photograph by John Stone.

Daniel Bowden could not have had a worse start to his Blues debut.

Inside his first three minutes in the Blues white away strip, he'd been hammered by Waratahs flanker Michael Hooper, missed touch from a penalty then thrown a forward pass.

The direction the Blues wanted from the 28-year-old was looking shaky and the come back Ihaia West chants must have been bouncing round the coaches box.

Bowden settled and goaled his first two kicks before he was smashed again, high, by Wycliff Palu.

This was intimidation, part of the Tahs plan to bash the Blues and wear them down.

Someone without Bowden's experience would have flinched more and become more subdued but the new five eighths continued to take the ball to the line and challenge the big men on the inside of the Tahs defensive screen.

His resilience was part of a spirited Blues production. They were all over the shop in many parts of their work but there was no yield, no flagging in their effort.

A number were banged up but they scrapped and fought on.

The game was ugly but style did not matter for the Blues, their target was to find a result, by any means, to break their losing sequence.

They stayed in their defensive line, they competed strongly at every breakdown and conjured up a great counter-attack try to Francis Saili.

Bottom line though, the Blues lost and remain bottom of the table facing all sorts of inquiries about their failures.