Gut-check time for battling Blues
Tana Umaga no doubt gave his Blues players some firm instructions about how best to spend their Super Rugby bye week back in Auckland.
Hopefully taking a long, hard look in the mirror was top of that list. The Blues, with three defeats from their first four matches, have found themselves in a familiar position – bottom of the Kiwi conference – and have no-one to blame but themselves.
The Blues’ reputation as hard on fans was enhanced after last weekend’s no-show in Cape Town when they gifted victory to the travel-weary Stormers with a lethargic, passive and error-ridden display.
After their glorious comeback victory over the Lions at Ellis Park, this was a disappointing, dispiriting and destructive plummet. So much of that good work was undone and, for all the positivity coming out of the camp, it was difficult to see where improvements have been made in 2018.
If Jo’burg had been an exciting and energising demonstration of what this Blues team can be; Newlands was a graphic representation of their mental softness and lack of collective spirit and nous.
Individually there have been some high points. Akira Ioane is providing a consistent spark off the back of the scrum, and has five tries from four matches. Bryn Gatland had made a good fist of No 10 before Cape Town; James Parsons is battling up front; Melani Nanai has been gobbling up the metres; and Michael Collins has been reliable at the back. Rieko Ioane, too, has been lethal in the right situations.
But the 37-20 loss to the Stormers was simply the result of a first-half no-show that was almost inexplicable.
The Stormers were there for the taking, just back from a tough, fruitless three-match tour to Australasia, and with a flu virus rattling through the squad on their return. But the Blues allowed the hosts to get their show rolling with three first-half tries en route to a 24-3 halftime lead. Game over.
‘‘We just lacked urgency in a lot of facets of our game,’’ noted Umaga. ‘‘We made a lot of errors. We talked about executing and trying to stop giving teams such a head start, yet we just weren’t able to do that.‘‘
Worse. The Blues had talked about a ‘‘backs to the wall’’ attitude from the Stormers, yet seemed stunned when the South Africans came out of the gates at a rapid clip. ‘‘They came out and showed how much they wanted it,’’ added Umaga.
And the Blues didn’t, which leaves things poised pretty precariously, even at this early stage of the season.