Crusaders winger Sevu Reece celebrates Will Jordan's late try during the Blues game against the Crusaders at Eden Park. Photo / Brett Phibbs, Photosport
Crusaders winger Sevu Reece celebrates Will Jordan's late try during the Blues game against the Crusaders at Eden Park. Photo / Brett Phibbs, Photosport
Opinion by Liam Napier
Liam Napier is a Senior Sports Journalist and Rugby Correspondent for New Zealand's Herald.
With the same coaching team and largely the same squad, logic suggested wrestling the mantle off the Blues would be daunting for the chasing pack.
Expectations that the Blues would build on their impressive foundations have instead rapidly eroded, with second-year syndrome biting hard to the point where Cotter’s men are in danger of missing the generous top-six playoffs.
After hinting at improvement in their knife-edge loss to the Chiefs in Hamilton, the Blues’ fifth loss from six attempts was their worst performance of the season. By some distance, too.
That humbling home defeat to the Crusaders – their equal-worst in history to their arch enemies at Eden Park – leaves the Blues limping into the bye week in desperate need of immediate solutions.
There are some key issues and statistics worth examining.
Hunger, or lack of
Attitude is difficult to quantify, but a lack of hunger is evident from the Blues. They made all the right noises about starting again, warding off complacency, but have, thus far, failed to walk the talk.
There’s a distinct mental difference in evolving from the hunters to the hunted. The Blues haven’t made that shift. Subconsciously shoulders dropped, with several players noting that training lacked the same consistent intensity as last year.
As Stephen Perofeta said before returning from injury against the Chiefs: “There’s not one single thing but there’s a huge shift around our attitude and mentality to win. The difference, I feel, is our hunger to train the way we want to compete.”
“That’s around getting complacent so it starts with our mindset and attitude and how we approach each day. We’re all aware of it. There’s been a lack thereof but it’s not the only thing.”
The necessary shift in attitude must be player-led. Rookie loose forward Cam Christie and second five-eighths Xavier Taele are among those displaying the required hunger. Senior counterparts need to drive that desire throughout the team.
After the largely self-inflicted adversity, how much do the Blues want a crack at defending the crown?
Accuracy
The pillars of the Blues game that orchestrated last year’s title have unravelled at times this year.
Cotter’s year-one blueprint centred on tightening and toughening the Blues – and it worked.
Last year, the Blues dominated the collisions and the set piece. Their lineout was the best in the competition, laying a platform to march opposition teams downfield through their maul. The Blues were rock-solid defensively, and highly effective with their kicking strategy.
In last week’s loss to the Crusaders, the Blues lost seven of 12 lineouts – reminiscent of their dire 2023 final defeat to the same opposition – with panic in the ranks following late injury-enforced withdrawals of Patrick Tuipulotu and Kurt Eklund.
The Blues kicked for 531 fewer metres than the Crusaders and conceded 19 turnovers.
Sure, the Crusaders were impressive, but the Blues gifted them every chance to be so. Six of those turnovers came directly from unforced coach-killer errors, too.
The Crusaders celebrate Will Jordan's try against the Blues. Photo / Photosport
The dominance from the direct, confrontational Blues pack has evaporated this year, with the Crusaders instead using their lineout maul to great effect and reducing the locals’ scrum to a 75% success rate.
Basic individual errors are haunting the Blues and they aren’t imposing the same physicality as last year, particularly at the breakdown where the lack of urgency and aggression was borne out in the Crusaders owning this area to generate rapid ruck speed and multiple turnovers.
Alarming stats
In the wake of the lopsided Crusaders defeat, Cotter bemoaned the Blues’ inability to construct pressure.
The scrum, maul, lineout, and direct, power-ball carries laid the methodical platform for the Blues’ breakthrough success. Standards in almost all those departments have significantly slipped.
Against the Crusaders the Blues had vastly more carries and carry metres than their opposition – yet they could not construct enough pressure.
The Blues had nine entries into the Crusaders’ 22, managing a 33% return.
In a season-wide context those issues are starkly illustrated in the Blues’ second last ranking for average tries scored, defenders beaten, kick metres, turnovers won, and scrum success.
The Blues rank seventh (of 11 teams) for lineout success, eighth for line breaks, ninth for line-break conversions, and last for average tries conceded.
Elements of their game are working well, with the counter attack remaining dangerous.
The Blues rank second for gain-line success and penalties conceded; fourth for ruck speed and dominant tackles.
On the whole, though, the pillars of their foundations have crumbled.
Here comes the cavalry
Any side with 14 players sidelined will struggle. The Blues boast better depth than most but those influential holes are proving problematic.
The calvary is, however, on the cusp of returning. Beauden Barrett, Tuipulotu, Eklund, Ricky Riccitelli, Zarn Sullivan, Adrian Choat, Anton Segner, Taufa Funaki, and AJ Lam could all be fit following the bye.
Given their scrum issues the Blues would desperately love All Blacks prop Ofa Tuʻungafasi back.
Any neck injury to a front-rower is treated with extreme caution, though, and there remains no definitive timeline on Tuʻungafasi’s return at present.
Sam Darry’s 2.03m-tall season-ending absence is also telling as a key missing lineout target.
Barrett’s comeback from an untimely fractured hand will garner most attention after he delivered an impressive first half performance against the Brumbies before departing with an injury that sparked the Blues’ demise in that loss.
Barrett’s return will likely push Perofeta to fullback to give the Blues two classy game drivers.
Welcoming back starting hookers Riccitelli and Eklund – and All Blacks lock Tuipulotu – should shore up the Blues lineout.
And livewire halfback Funaki – yet to be sighted this season – will inject another dimension to the Blues attack around the fringes.
No one will fancy facing a full-strength Blues in the playoffs but there’s no guarantees they’ll get there yet.
Road ahead
Entering the first of two byes this week, the Blues sit ninth, seven points off the sixth-placed Western Force.
Indeed, how the tables have turned.
While there’s ample runway to recoup lost ground, this year’s competition is heavily congested. Further setbacks will compromise lift off.
From the hole they’ve dug, the Blues’ road to the playoffs is treacherous.
They return next week to host the Hurricanes and must then confront away trips to Christchurch, Suva, and Brisbane, the latter to meet Australia’s form team.
Two matches against Moana Pasifika won’t be easy, either. Finishing the regular season with the Waratahs at Eden Park will determine whether the Blues earn the chance to defend their title.
And if they do, it will be away from home comforts against this year’s front-runners.
Assessing his side’s status before the break, Cotter used a golfing analogy to reflect on their horror start to the season.
The Blues, he reasoned, must now channel their inner Rory McIlroy to mount a transformative back-nine surge.
Liam Napier has been a sports journalist since 2010, and his work has taken him to World Cups in rugby, netball and cricket, boxing world title fights and Commonwealth Games.
