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Contenders or pretenders: Why the Blues aren't entitled to anything other than hype ahead of Chiefs clash

By Michael Pulman
(Photo by Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images)

The Blues aren’t entitled to anything other than hype at this stage. The reality is their own ill-discipline must be rooted out immediately or they’ll quickly slide off the ship.

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For a team that is so often accused of being overhyped, a second straight defeat in the second edition of Super Rugby Aotearoa could see those accusations return to the fold, and rightly so too.

The Blues, they say, are the story of this all-Kiwi competition right now. Journalists, needing desperately to talk about anything other than a pending fifth consecutive title-win for the Crusaders, say that Auckland is the place to be because there is something genuinely exciting about the prospects for a franchise that is finally finding its groove.

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The Chiefs win a game, the Crusades can’t lose and what happened to Wales?

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The Chiefs win a game, the Crusades can’t lose and what happened to Wales?

That is until ill-discipline entered the fray.

Needless penalties and suspect decision-making by players who should know better might be issues that Blues coach Leon MacDonald thinks is an easy fix, but the 43-year old might not look further than his very opponents this weekend to get a better understanding of how difficult that assumption can be in reality.

Similar claims were made by Warren Gatland as he coached the Chiefs to an 0-9 run. Ill-discipline were again key factors in the two losses to start the 2021 campaign under Clayton McMillan which really set the Waikato-based franchise staring down the barrel.

The effects are simple and impactful. Discipline, or the lack thereof, can infect a side like the plague and be very difficult to recover from. Its fixes are not found in a simpler rugby rulebook or in the referees, but in the efforts of the players.

If a team is ill-disciplined for long enough, they’ll soon become a target.

It doesn’t matter if the Blues had been relatively good in the penalties department prior to the Crusaders loss. It doesn’t matter how competitive they were at scrum time or at set piece.

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What fans saw in the Eden Park encounter was needless penalty after needless penalty, compounded and punished further by flagrant idiocy in the case of Kurt Eklund’s wrestling move on Sevu Reece and a dangerous cleanout by Ofa Tu’ungafasi who has been punished for similar actions in the past.

“There is the Crusaders and the Blues then everyone else,” a colleague in rugby media told me this week in a comment that reflects the general feeling in Super Rugby Aotearoa right now.

But the Blues must be wary that they don’t slide down into the sub-category conversation that the remaining three franchises find themselves in currently.

A loss to the Chiefs, a side that has no business beating the Blues if you go on recent history, could be the igniter that starts such a slide.

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If that were to happen it would look disastrous, painting the picture of a Blues team that penalised its way to being blown off the scoreboard in perhaps the most important game of recent memory followed by a loss to a team that they should beat with ease.

The Crusaders are the only side in Super Rugby Aotearoa that the Blues should be described as potential underdogs when matched up against.

In terms of the rest? When you compare the raw ability of the backline, of which all its main names are fit and playing well, and the genuine strength of the forward pack which bolsters four big men of starting All Blacks caliber, there is simply no comparison to what the others have in their stocks.

So far, the Blues have managed to escape the injury plague (with a couple of exceptions) to keep their best players on the park. The plague they really need to avoid is becoming a side that creates its own pressure by way of ill-disciple, something that sadly for them, was on full display in the last outing.

Here’s what MacDonald had to say of the ill-discipline against the Crusaders: “We’ve been really good with our discipline up until now. That was the first game where we were on the wrong side of the ledger with discipline but overall there is a lot of areas in the game that we are competing well in”.

The key word in that statement being competing. The Blues are competing extremely well and, indeed, have rightly performed to an exceptional level in recent times. Encounters where the Blues have not only competed, but won definitively, could only be dreamed of amongst fans of the franchise not to long ago.

It’s clear that MacDonald is the right man to coach this team back to the promised land of the late 90s and early 2000s, now it’s up to his players to prove they buy into the same vision by not allowing themselves to come into another game prepared to give away penalties and hope that the results against the very best still go their way because all other areas of their game are solid enough.

That type of attitude will net more losses than wins, even against sides that few would expect.

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Jon 3 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 5 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

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Adrian 7 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

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T
Trevor 10 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

21 Go to comments
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