This isn’t super rugby, it’s not even much fun any more

Strike up the chorus of tiny violins while I sing the Blues about Auckland’s woeful rugby team.

IT’S finally happened. Just this Friday night gone. It’s something that you think only happens to other people. But when it does happen, it hits you with the sadness of a thousand sad souls.

Even now as I contemplate this, my eyes turn heavy – as heavy as the mist that occasionally rolls into Mangere and closes Auckland Airport.

It’s hard to even type out, but here goes… the Blues are struggling. (I was going to write a far worse descriptor than ‘‘struggling’’ but that’s the harshest I can be to my team.)

Of course this is hardly news to most rugby-lovers south of the Bombay Hills who seem only too happy to say that, from Auckland north, everyone sucks at the national game.

Except things are so bad, they don’t bother any more. How bad have things become when the rest of the country can’t even be bothered laying into this favourite horse to kick? They just walk past, hoping the old nag will be put out of its misery – somewhere out of sight, where no one has to see.

Like many true-blue fans in the North, I refused to believe the doom and gloom peddled by pundits. The press has been playing this record for ages but Blues fans have been raised on a diet of dominance and glory that spanned decades.

Admitting your team is anything less than champion material is akin to saying something bad about your mum. Only thing is, we’ve been thinking this since the Blues last won a championship – which was 15 years ago in 2003. That was the year the New Zealand population hit 4 million and we thought that was a sign of the good times returning.

But now it’s obvious that it was more of a reflection of how that season, the Blues enjoyed two of the most extraordinary rugby weapons ever known – first-five Carlos Spencer in his prime and a flying Fijina winger by the name of Rupeni Caucaunibuca.

Recently there’s been a sure– sign of the depths Blues rugby has reached that even the hardiest among us cannot ignore – people have run out of things to say about the team and instead talk about how loyal the fans are.

That’s like going to the theatre and the only positive thing you can talk about is the lighting. That’s when you know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that your team is about to hit rock bottom.

The final nail in this coffin of realisation came for me on Friday night when I was at the pub in Kingsland watching the game on TV. As the final minutes ticked down, even my normally cocky Hurricanes-loving friends were sympathetically silent and I looked around at my fellow Aucklanders. There was not even shock. Just everyone assuming that pose from Edvard Munch’s famous painting The

‘ Even my normally cocky Hurricanesloving friends were silent in sympathy.’

Scream.

It was another sign of the times that even in Auckland, just down the road from the Fortress of Eden, we were outnumbered by numerous Hurricanes fans who proudly wore their jerseys with the kind of serene smugness you could imagine possessing if you had an ATM card that would never decline.

I have no idea who’s at fault for The Blues’ demise and this column isn’t about apportioning blame or suggesting solutions. After all, despite the best efforts of many great people it’s been happening for so long that it seems to be the symptom of a larger problem with rugby north of the Bombays.

This is just a die-hard fan, finally admitting, that yep, rugby in the north is struggling.

Doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop supporting the Blues, it comes with being from this part of the country. It just really sucks. Cue, thousands or tiny violins striking up in sympathy.