Wynne Gray: Blues' lineage boggles the mind

When the Blues honours board adds the latest inductees who pulled on the Super 14 strip last night, more than 170 players will have worn the team colours since the series began in 1996. Only supporters with encyclopaedic memories could compile that entire list and even then you'd bet they'd need to refer to a swag of dusty almanacs, programmes or blokes involved in some of those campaigns.

Just go back five years and, hand on heart, it might have been difficult to remember that Tom Harding and Taufa'aso Filise were in the squad.

Drift further back in time and it would be easy to forget that Marc Ellis or Samiu Vahafolau slipped on the jersey during the 1999 campaign.

All Black loosehead prop Craig Dowd, by dint of his appearance in the No 1 jersey in the first game all those years ago, heads the honours board list and there are many great international and provincial names below his.

Much of the emphasis before this latest season has been on the stars who have graced sides in its 15-year history, but what about those Blues, like 2006 prop Mike Noble who never made it on to the field, who have disappeared from the memory banks.

Some were very handy but, through time and more than 1000 matches played since the professional series kicked off in Palmerston North, have slipped off the radar. Would you recall this Blues collection?

Cameron Rackham, Hayden Reid, Justin Wilson, Jared Going, Amasio Valence, Tony Monaghan, Billy Fulton, Brent Thompson, Regan Tamihere, Matt Webber, Chris Rose, Matt Lord, David Morgan, Shane McDonald, Sam Biddles.

Meanwhile, much has been made about the merits of referees fronting up to news conferences to explain their decisions. All very worthy but it looms as a tedious process which will detract from games and is best suited to that rising media group who struggle to ditch their provincial loyalties or form their own opinions.

If the aim is interaction and a totally uncensored view of matches, referees should be wired up to the public address system so all those at the ground and those watching on television have an immediate and unrestricted take on their rulings.