AT A GLANCE
Last week their timing sucked. This week it was sublime as the Blues snapped their three-game Super Rugby losing skid in the most sumptuous of style.
After being deadlocked 7-7 at halftime against a resolute Bulls side, the Blues exploded for five second-half tries to ease to a decisive 38-14 victory at QBE Stadium in Albany last night.
With six tries to two Tana Umaga’s men bank a muchneeded bonus point victory. More importantly, they made the necessary improvements to go the full 80 this week and do the damage when it really mattered.
A week earlier they had fired all their bullets early against the Blues 38 (Augustine Pulu, Matt Duffie 2, Ihaia West, Matt Moulds, Melani Nanai tries; Piers Francis 2 cons, West 2 cons), Bulls 14 (Lizo Gqoboka, Rudy Paige tries; Handre Pollard con, Tian Schoeman). Ht: 7-7. Crusaders in Christchurch, coughing up a 24-5 led to go down 33-24. But this time there was to be no repeat.
At 7-7 the match was delicately poised at the break. But as Matt Duffie (twice), supersub Ihaia West, Matt Moulds and Melani Nanai all crossed the line over the second 40 this was the Blues back at their expressive best, and well and truly back in the race.
The victory was the Blues’ 11th in 12 home games against the men from Pretoria who, frankly, travel about as well as Guinness. They have now dropped 10 of their last 11 matches in New Zealand, and have started the new season by losing all three road matches en route to a 1-3 start.
Umaga was rapt his team stuck to the game-plan to double the win tally for the year, improving to 11 points with a 2-3 record, and remaining a handy fourth in the ultra-competitive Kiwi conference.
‘‘We talked about the fact that they’d tire in the second half and if we just kept at them we’d get them. We stuck to our game, tried to play a bit and it started opening up,’’ a happy coach said afterwards. ‘‘The positive thing for us was we started to talk a bit more, and take the opportunities that were on hand. We also gave a lot of guys a bit of a run today too to give them a taste of this level.’’
One aspect of the victory especially pleased Umaga.
‘‘We put in a lot of work with our maul, went in with a plan and the guys stuck to it.
‘‘I’d say 99 per cent of it we were very, very happy with. That’s the key: we were all on the same page when it came to that. And across the board we wore them down in areas where we thought we could and were able to make them pay when it came to it.’’
The Blues started promisingly, with livewire halfback Augustine Pulu dashing away for this third try of the season after some crisp work down the left touchline from Michael Collins and Nanai created the opening.
But if the home faithful in Albany had sensed the floodgates opening, they were to be disappointed as the Blues could not add to the tally for the remaining 37 minutes.
Whatever Umaga had to say at the break, it worked as a more patient and purposeful Blues side came out and took a grip on the match. Two tries to fast improving wing Duffie in the first quarter of an hour eased them out to 19-7, and from there they were away.
The first came early when, from unpromising ball, Collins straightened nicely and offloaded to Duffie for a nice fend on Jamba Ulengo and an angled run to the line. The second was precision attack from a 5m scrum, with Piers Francis’ crosskick inch-perfect for his wing unmarked out wide.
A yellow card to Jerome Kaino for a neck roll on the 58-minute mark briefly allowed the Bulls a passage back into the match, but it was closed abruptly when substitute first five West sliced through a Bull defensive line out of alignment to make it 24-7.
From there the Blues finished strongly, replacement hooker Moulds finishing a nicely worked attack out wide and then Nanai dashing 45m for a beauty straight from the restart, with the busy West and Rieko Ioane carving the opening.
The in-form strong match.. Pulu had another