Barrett boss for Blues as they find backbone in Battle of Bombays
The Blues have long been searching for the backbone factor to help marry their talent with their ambition in the Super Rugby arena.
Last night in Hamilton they may well have found it, and in the process, not just invoked the spirit of Martin Johnson’s 2003 England side, but taken a major step in their mission to make the transformation from pretenders to contenders in the southern franchise game.
The Blues’ 25-0 shutout of the Chiefs at FMG Stadium Waikato was notable, and slightly remarkable, on several fronts. The Blues played a chunk of the game with 13 men and had three players yellow-carded for various offences, but dug deep, made a mountain of tackles and managed to keep their hosts scoreless throughout not just the periods they were numerically challenged, but indeed the entire 80 minutes.
The Chiefs threw everything at their mates from over the Bombays, after soaking up their own period of pressure through the opening quarter, but somehow could find no legal way over the line. They looked to have scored three tries but had them all rubbed out, with hooker Samisoni Taukei’aho denied by Ofa Tuungafasi’s valiant play on the ball in the corner, and wing Etene Nanai-Seturo seeing two second-half five-pointers fail to pass the scrutiny of the TMO.
Through it all the Blues hung tough and absorbed a lot of pressure, made a lot of tackles and found the energy and the will to keep their busy opponents at bay. It was nose to the grindstone footy – a long way from the ‘Flash Harry’ stuff they’ve become known for.
The character, grit and resourcefulness they showed in surviving those three yellow cards (the Chiefs did cop one themselves), and just in keeping their line intact against a Chiefs side that threw a heap at them, have not always been qualities associated with these Blues.
They showed glimpses last year when they rolled through the Super Rugby Trans-Tasman competition unbeaten to end an 18-year tile drought, but by their own admission that was not ‘‘the
real thing’’. This is. As they kept the Chiefs scoreless for the first time in the history of these clashes, the Blues showed these important intrinsic qualities as they joined the Crusaders atop the standings with a 6-1 record, and 27 competition points.
In doing so, they took us back to that 2003 World Cup-winning England team who famously defeated the All Blacks 15-13 in Wellington, despite being down to 13 men in the second half with Neil Back and Lawrence Dallaglio in the bin.
The Blues showed similar qualities as they dug in with 13 men either side of halftime to deny the Chiefs. They led 13-0 at the break, survived wave after wave of attack and broke the spirit of their hosts a quarter of an hour into the second spell when they conjured a magical try to Tom Robinson via Beauden Barrett’s cross kick to seal the deal.
The return of Barrett helped. He was quite special in just his second start on the back of a season interrupted early on by head knocks – the first a major one (symptoms felt over summer from the test in Ireland), the second a minor inconvenience.