Rugby: Blues set to make rivals pay - Kirwan

'If you have a look at our season so far, we could have won every football game', says Blues coach John Kirwan. Photo / Getty Images

Yet another narrow defeat left Sir John Kirwan sure of one thing - sooner or later the Blues are going to make another team pay.

Sooner would be preferable for the sake of everyone involved in the franchise, with Saturday night's 23-16 loss to the Chiefs running the Blues' ignominious record to zero wins and seven losses.

Those are a couple of unseemly numbers to be associated with a once-proud team, numbers that leave the Blues 14 points behind the fourth-place team in the NZ conference.

But there are other numbers that supply reason for optimism. After all, each of the Blues' seven defeats have been by 12 points or fewer, with an average losing margin of 6.6.

While good teams make their own luck, no side can remain that poor in close matches. Variance suggests it's simply unsustainable, leading Kirwan to think that, one of these days, the opposition are going to cop it.

"If you have a look at our season so far, we could have won every football game," he said. "We just haven't been able to cross the line.

"So it's incredibly frustrating but we've just got to keep doing what we're doing and someone's going to pay."

Such a statement might be the subject of mockery in some quarters, considering more speculation has surrounded Kirwan paying with his job, but his counterpart at the Chiefs shares his view. Dave Rennie, in fact, was pleased to have picked up two tights wins over the Blues and crossed a line through their name in the schedule.

"I reckon they're going to knock some teams over," Rennie said. "They had a pretty good side on the paddock and they looked like a team who are still playing with a fair bit of character. Other teams, losing their first six games, could have fallen apart at 10-nil. There's obviously still a bit of soul in that group and if they play like they did tonight they'll knock teams over. From that point of view, we're reasonably happy we've played them twice already. Hopefully they'll knock over some other teams who are in and around us."

The character was the aspect that most pleased Kirwan, who called the loss his team's best performance of the season. Character, of course, counts for little on the table, but it does bode well ahead of three fixtures against teams in the top six.

"The way the guys are playing, considering where we're at, makes me incredibly proud. And I hope the fans can see that," he said. "But we're here to win football games. I believe that we're creating something special here and, once we get over that hump, I think we'll get on a good run."