Blues desperate to end title drought
There was a moment during Leon MacDonald’s last chat with the media ahead of tonight’s Super Rugby Trans-Tasman final at Eden Park where the Blues coach casually tried to pass his team off as plucky underdogs eager to achieve against the odds.
This was selective rationale and coach-talk creativity at its best. MacDonald’s Blues are many things, but against-the-odds battlers is certainly not one of them.
Having mastered the art of overpromising and under-delivering for a decade or more, they appear to have finally found some consistent form over the last two seasons, bouncing back from a disappointing 4-4 Aotearoa campaign in 2021 to go 5-0 and earn hosting rights for this Trans-Tasman final against the Highlanders.
Yes, it’s been a while. It was 2003, when Helen Clark was Prime Minister and Scribe had the top song in the country with Not Many, when the Blues last contested a Super final, defeating the Crusaders 21-17 to claim their third title.
Now they’re back again, albeit in a truncated competition in which the five New Zealand sides played only Australians in the qualifying round. The Blues, Highlanders and Crusaders all went 5-0, all tallied 23 competition points, and when points difference was factored in it was the former two left standing.
MacDonald was asked about those gritty, over-achieving Highlanders, with their abrasiveness, trick plays and hard-nosed commitment, and whether their underdog status was something they thrived on. His response was interesting.
‘‘They’ve got that identity around the battlers from down south that nobody rates, and they love that tag,’’ he said. ‘‘It motivates them to get up and get stuck in and prove everybody wrong.
‘‘I suppose we’ve had that mantle as well a little bit ourselves. We haven’t been rated for a long time and have had to prove ourselves. It’s probably two teams with similar mindsets ... there are quite contrasting styles, different strengths, so it’s going to be an intriguing battle.’’
MacDonald’s attempt to portray his team as gritty battlers is admirable, if misguided.
These Blues, like so many of their predecessors, are stacked with talent and top-end class. They have eight All Blacks in their pack and a backline brimming with X-factor. They have the strongest schools competition in the world playing out in their backyard, the biggest population to call on, wealthiest companies queued up as sponsors ... you get the picture.
They should be perennial contenders. Instead they’ve been annual pretenders. Between 2012 and 2019 (MacDonald’s first year) they failed to register a single winning season, finishing between ninth and 14th for eight straight years. So embedded were they to the bottom rung on the Kiwi conference, it was as though they were welded there.
Talent, schmalent. It has meant nothing until MacDonald and his capable coaching crew started shifting a few mindsets and practices. In 2020 we saw signs the wheel was turning. The Blues were 5-2 and travelling smoothly when Covid struck, and then went 5-2 again in the rejigged Super Rugby Aotearoa, finishing runners-up behind the Crusaders.
There was a misstep in Aotearoa this year when they dropped half their eight matches, but they have been good enough to make the correction in Trans-Tasman, and are deserving of this spot in the second final of the year.
They have got there because they have figured a few things out about their game.
They are finally using that big, strong pack as it should be, and are unleashing a nice mixture of percentage rugby and razzle-dazzle when it’s on. They are also turning up with consistent effort and a sound game-plan to squeeze the life out of opponents.
‘‘When our pack is doing what they do well, they’re a handful,’’ added MacDonald. ‘‘But we’ve also got some dangerous backs doing good things with the ball as well. We back ourselves, they will be backing themselves, and they’ll be pretty buoyed from the win they got against us this year down in Dunedin. ‘‘That will be their blueprint, for sure. We will be expecting a lot of the same, and they’ll be looking at round two’s performance when we beat them here. There will be a bit of adjusting from both teams.
‘‘We know what’s coming.’’ Truth is if the Blues get it right tonight, they should send the bulk of a huge crowd (expected to be over 30,000) home happy. They will miss Tom Robinson’s steely presence, but have an able replacement in All Black Akira Ioane. They will look to dominate up front, put the acid on at
scrum time, win the breakdown battle and build pressure and points through the territory and possession game.
Fin Christie and Otere Black have big roles to play. The gamedrivers must put their forwards in all the right places to exert their influence. Then deliver for Rieko Ioane and co out wide.
‘‘It’s new for us, a final . . .it’s important we stay focused on the job,’’ added MacDonald. ‘‘There are a lot of guys who have been around this team for a long time who are desperate to be part of a successful final. That’s spurred this team to keep grinding. It means a lot.’’
The Blues will farewell some loyal servants tonight, including midfielder TJ Faiane and lock Gerard Cowley-Tuioti, and would love to write a long-overdue new chapter in their history in the process. The moment is theirs, if they’re good enough to grab it.
‘‘It’s new for us, a final . . .it’s important we stay focused on the job.’’
Leon MacDonald
Blues coach