Beaten Blues hit rock bottom
IN the week that beleaguered Blues coach Tana Umaga had his future rubber-stamped from above, his team showed that the present remains a rather bleak prospect.
The Blues crashed to their seventh defeat of this Super Rugby season, toppled 20-13 by Argentina’s Jaguares in a result that was significant for the visitors and downright depressing for the hosts.
It was the Jaguares’ first victory in New Zealand and first over a Kiwi side in this competition as they lit up a wintry night at a cavernously empty Eden Park with their passion, skill and marauding muscular play.
The Blues never really came to grips with testing conditions last night as driving wind and rain put a premium on aspects such as skill, tactics, patience and physicality up front that they’ve been found wanting in throughout much of this campaign.
On the other side of the coin, the Jaguares adapted splendidly in conditions they’re not exactly familiar with, and banked a third straight road victory as a result. On the back of two quality wins in Australia, this might just be the coming of age of this franchise who improve to 5-5 for the season, and 20 competition points.
In comparison, the Blues are going nowhere fast. They have now lost seven of their nine matches in 2018, and will almost certainly finish another season well out of the playoff picture. They improve by a meagre one point to 13 for the season, hopelessly adrift of where the real teams play.
The visitors deserved their triumph, even if they looked a little off the pace in the first half. They muscled up well behind quality operators like Agustin Creevy and Leonardo Senatore up front, and made the most of what chances came their way. Jeronimo De la Fuente was the standout in a well-marshalled backline.
In atrocious conditions, the Blues actually put together a pretty decent first half, by their own mediocre standards, and a 13-5 halftime lead, into the driving wind and rain, was significant. That was after they managed to stop infringing, and gifting opportunities to the visitors.
The Jaguares, who won a string of early penalties, and a yellow card to Blues No 8 Akira Ioane, scored the game’s opening try in the 14th minute when a big lineout drive put hard-nosed hooker Creevy over with a degree of ease.
Then, down a man, the Blues struck back just three minutes later when they too launched off the penalty option and a nice wide pass from Stephen Perofeta found rookie wing Tumua Manu with enough room to squeeze over in