KEY POINTS:
Just when the Blues' search for a pivot had got murkier than the provincial player loan system, a potential saviour has turned up.
News that Tasesa Lavea is leaving the Chiefs and will return to the Blues (news that was released by Lavea himself) is cause for mild, although certainly not wild, celebration.
Up until that point, the No 10 predictions had been grim to the point of dire. Now they are merely extremely concerning.
David Holwell, Jimmy Gopperth, Lachie Munro ... not exactly natural heirs to the faded legacy of Carlos Spencer.
Holwell of course has proved his enormous courage by going back to play for Northland. Holwell has flung his little body into the fray more than any No 10 should have to and lived to tell the tale. He chases high kicks like a labrador after a stick. And he kicks clever.
I would like to say here that there is no greater admirer of Holwell than me, but that would be to forget the entire Sky commentary team. They looooooove David Holwell. He epitomises old sporting values of selfless dedication, and deserves all the adulation he gets.
But little Davie Holwell is not a ball playing and running genius with plenty of miles left on the clock. Put it this way - Holwell is not exactly a vote for a magical future. Old legs are not suited to the zip-zap early season jetsetting Super 14 either.
Jimmy Gopperth is a poor man's David Holwell. No offence, but when suggestions emerged that Gopperth might be the No 10, Blues fans should have started praying Holwell might be enticed off his farm. Two words sprang to mind when Gopperth's name was mentioned. Lower and table.
He arrived at North Harbour from Wellington to be their playmaker and captain. North Harbour were rubbish and Gopperth has done nothing to dispel the notion that he was a flash in the pan who isn't up to Super 14 standards.
Lachie Munro is actually Lucky Munro. Munro is not without ability but his rise so far is due to great timing. He has emerged in an era when Carlos Spencer and Nick Evans and Isa Nacewa have hiked off overseas. If you are going to consider playing Lachie Munro at No. 10, you might as well play Isaia Toeava at No. 10. Seriously.
The bumbling Blues might as well go for broke, throw caution to the wind, give wild talent its head, and go for Lavea and Toeava as the No. 10 options. At least if they fail, which they will surely do yet again in 2009, it will be an interesting failure.
Which brings us to Lavea.
Yes, he has his faults, the major one being that he plays in cruise mode - he'll have the odd disaster perhaps. Lavea's also been obsessed with the bomb at times while playing for Counties Manukau, although the Steelers aren't exactly a vast blank canvas of possibilities for a first five-eighths.
But Lavea's rare ability to drift at defensive lines with the ball out front while encouraging runners on either side of him has the potential to leave the very best of defences befuddled (although big hitters must line him up with glee). It's hard to think of any other player in rugby who can do this as well as Lavea, who was once a highly rated newcomer for Melbourne in the NRL.
There is an elegance and craft, a certain unique magic, to the ways of Lavea. He's the sort of bloke whom kids should try to emulate down at the local park where the name of the game is ball-playing flair and tricks rather than all the phase counting that goes on in the upper echelons.
If Pat Lam and Shane Howarth get things right - an increasingly big "if", one has to say - and find a way for the Blues to work around Lavea, it could be stunning to watch.
Of course it probably won't be. Not with this lot, who tread in a quicksand of ever-changing theories.
And the Blues are still a world away from the heady if not overly successful days of Spencer. But at least Lavea provides a teeny-weeny ray of hope. And he's worth the admission price on one of his good days.
* Hail the mighty Northland. It was a magnificent effort from the battling northerners in beating Auckland at Eden Park yesterday. All power to them. But has Auckland rugby ever been this low? The failure by any team in the Blues franchise area to get into the Air New Zealand Cup playoffs is embarrassing. How can an area this heavily populated fail so badly. About the best you can say for the Blues right now is that Ali Williams is on the way home.
* The system of separating tied teams at the conclusion of the 14-team Air New Zealand Cup's regular season is a masterclass in confusion, made infinitely worse by the fact that some teams do not play each other under the 10-round format. Using a points differential is by far the clearest and easiest way.
* Brian McClennan has done it again. He coached his beloved Mt Albert to the national league title, and did the same with the league outpost of Hibiscus Coast. Then he got the Kiwis to overturn decades of dominance by the Kangaroos.
Now, in his first season at Leeds, he has coached them to retain the Super League title. That represents some record. If McClennan continues on his winning way and the Warriors cannot snare the NRL title, you can imagine a day when there is a push for him to return as coach of the Auckland NRL side.
