Super Rugby Pacific: Why Leon MacDonald believes Blues still have more to find

The Blues have won their last 11 matches in a row. Photo / Photosport

The Blues are edging closer to cementing themselves as the top seed in the Super Rugby Pacific playoffs but they're far from finished improving their performances.

With their 53-26 win over the Reds in Auckland, the Blues hold a seven-point buffer at the top of the ladder, and a win over the Brumbies in Canberra on Saturday would see them finish the regular season there.

With two rounds remaining, it's a target Blues coach Leon MacDonald wants to see his side hit — be it against the Brumbies or the week after against the Waratahs, and he believes continually building will make that happen.

"We don't want to lose momentum. It's important that we keep building," MacDonald said.

"We don't want to go backwards and it's easy for us to get up for such an important game against the other top team. What we want to get out of next week is a better performance than this week. We just want to keep getting better every week."

Part of that will come down to squad health. At the pointy end of the season, it is often the case that squad depth can play a role, and how a team uses their bench can also be a factor.

"We're starting to see now right across the competition that some teams are really starting to struggle with some injuries, so it's important we've got good depth throughout the squad."

The Blues might have a hard time improving on their attack. Against the Reds at Eden Park, their forwards carried strongly and got to the breakdown quickly, allowing the backline room to move, which was well used. Beauden Barrett and Stephen Perofeta worked well as dual playmaking threats, with every player in the backline having some impressive moments.

In their last two matches, the Blues have run in 19 tries and scored 124 points, and their plus-183 points differential is Super Rugby's best by 52 points.

However, MacDonald acknowledged some defensive concerns. While mostly defensively sound, the four tries scored by the Reds all came a bit easily — with two from pick-and-go play close to the line, before Reds fullback Jock Campbell bagged a double late on the counter-attack.

"There's always things we want to improve. We won't be happy with some of the defensive work on our tryline, and some of our discipline and decision-making at the breakdown.

"A lot of the time we're giving away penalties through keenness and eagerness to do well for the team, but sometimes [it helps] being a little bit smarter and not giving any pictures for the referee to ping us. We trust our D, our D looks really good in phases, so we probably just need to be a little bit smarter there."