Will blue be thenew black?
OPINION: The Blues might just be back and New Zealand rugby should be better for it.
It wasn’t that long ago – though it must seem a lifetime for the Blues faithful – a well-used saying rang true: ‘‘When Auckland rugby is strong, New Zealand rugby is strong.’’
That was on the back of some remarkable blue and white dominance of national championships and Ranfurly Shield clashes, culminating in 10 Auckland players lining out in the All Blacks starting team that won the inaugural Rugby World Cup on their beloved Eden Park in 1987.
The last time the All Blacks won the World Cup, at London’s Twickenham in 2015, Jerome Kaino was the only Auckland and Blues player in the starting XV with front rowers Keven Mealamu and Charlie Faumuina on the bench.
That summed up the long and painful slide for a Blues outfit that had dominated the opening phase of Super Rugby but then been thoroughly overtaken by the Crusaders as the power base of the New Zealand game shifted south.
It’s no coincidence that it has taken a Crusaders stalwart in Leon Macdonald to generate the Blues revival as head coach.
A bit of red and black tenacity added to the traditional blue and white adventure has produced a pretty potent mix.
It might be too early to suggest the Blues really are the real deal again but five wins from seven games before the coronavirus pandemic stalled Super Rugby and an enthusiastic win over the Hurricanes as the domestic version took over last weekend make for some truly positive signs.
And the national game should be rejoicing.
With just five teams involved in this competition, the ‘‘Aotearoa’’ championship couldn’t afford to have one team being the easybeats the Blues had morphed into over the last decade or two.
They’d become the laughing stock of the local Super Rugby scene, not just with their performances but also with their selections or, more notably, their non-selections.
They often had some of their better players plucked away by Kiwi rivals, right from under their nose.
Other players who struggled at the Blues went on to thrive at other franchises, much to the bemusement of the northern faithful
Now the Blues have turned the tables.
They managed to persuade Hurricanes star Beauden Barrett to head up to the big smoke and their signing of Dan Carter, whose blood is red and black, showed how serious their intentions are.
At 38, Carter’s signature was still an investment in the future for his core value to this squad will be the professionalism he will offload to the younger players around him.
Look at the way he helped keep a once flighty Blues outfit focussed to finish on the right side of the ledger as he ran the water bottles against the Hurricanes.
New Zealand rugby finds itself at an interesting juncture on the back of last year’s World Cup semifinal exit.
It was an embarrassing loss to England and signalled the end of Steve Hansen’s long and successful link to the All Blacks.
There’s a bit of a rebuilding job to be done and the more options that new head coach Ian Foster has, the better his resources will be. The country’s largest population base needs to be contributing to the cause.