Benji gets the Blues

It was always a bit of a long shot – the Blues signing Benji Marshall from the NRL . Marshall was 28, he had little to no rugby experience and was being touted as a possible firstfive in his new code.

There were a lot of reasons to believe it was doomed from the start. But despite it being a long shot and far from certain to work out, there was this sense that Marshall would stick out his new code for the duration.

He signed a two- year deal and that felt about right – long enough for Marshall to give it a fair crack and equally, enough time for the Blues to determine whether their investment was paying off.

Both Marshall and the Blues were going to have to be patient: he didn’t have the experience to steer the Blues around the field so he was confined largely to the bench.

Seven weeks into the competition and he had to play the bulk of the game against the Hurricanes at first- five and he struggled. He had no real clue what he was doing.

Still, all part of the learning curve. Not so as it happens. Marshall was told he needed to work on his game with the development team, club rugby and ITM Cup.

He didn’t particularly fancy the sound of that so a shock announcement was made that his contract with the Blues was being terminated 18 months early.

“It probably wasn’t the right age to do it,” Marshall said at hastily convened press conference that same day. “I could have gone down the club rugby path and tried to change my habits. But the reality of it all was that I was finding it quite hard to change my habits from league. A lot of those habits are quite lateral while in rugby you have to be quite square. I was finding that quite difficult, especially at 10.”