Unbeaten ’97 side pinnacle for Blues
The Elo system was designed to rank chess masters. The Herald has tweaked a version of the algorithm to chart Super Rugby’s highs and lows. Today, Dylan Cleaver looks at the second-best team ever.
As a franchise, we are popularly led to believe the Blues are a mass of contradictions wrapped in the clingfilm of dysfunction.
It has become easy to forget that they were the standard-setters in the wide-eyed early days of professional rugby and that their three titles ranks them level with the Bulls and behind only the Crusaders.
We too often ignore the fact that Super Rugby titles are hard to win, unless you’re a Crusader (and even then, you should probably ask Todd Blackadder before writing that line).
They were arguably harder to win back in the Blues’ golden years, as the modern conference and playoff system offers multiple lifelines. There are more teams trying to win the title these days, but a diluted player pool means there are fewer genuinely capable of doing so.
According to the Elo ratings compiled by statistics student Wil Undy for the Herald, the 1997 postfinal Blues are the second greatest Super rugby team of all-time, with a season-adjusted score of 1697.
That 1997 Blues team were a class above the competition. The 23-7 win over the Brumbies in the final at Eden Park was more a coronation than a contest, while a week earlier the 55-36 win over Natal (now the Sharks) was ample demonstration of their attacking prowess. The only blot on their season was a 40-40 draw at Loftus Versfeld against Northern Transvaal.
The team that lined up in the final starstudded. From fullback to the front it read: Adrian Cashmore, Brian Lima, Eroni Clarke, Lee Stensness, Joeli Vidiri, Carlos Spencer, Ofisa Tonu’u, Zinzan Brooke (c), Michael Jones, Mark Carter, Robin Brooke, Leo Lafaiali’i, Craig Dowd, Sean Fitzpatrick and Olo Brown. The reserves, and this was in the days when the bench was still used largely for injury cover only, were: Jeremy Stanley, Michael Scott, Dylan Mika, Charles Riechelmann, Paul Thomson and Andrew Roose.
Of the starting XV, only Lima and Lafaiali’i didn’t play for the All Blacks, and both had long careers for Samoa.
This team might not have had the consistent excellence across the park of the 2002 Crusaders, but they had transcendent talents in Zinzan Brooke and Michael Jones, a front row for the ages and a hot-hand at first-five in Spencer. Of all those stars, none gets more attention than the mercurial Spencer as it is argued, with some justification, that the failure to replace him adequately has been the main stumbling block to further Blues success.
The team was coached by then-autocrat Graham Henry who, after the loss to the Crusaders in the 1998 final, decamped to the distant land of Cymru, where he sought to redeem Welsh rugby.
That would take the wind out of the City of Sails, but he returned like a typhoon in 2003, teaming up with Peter Sloane to guide the Blues to their third and, to this point, final title. Ever since the Blues went on a lateseason charge in 2008, which saw them finish a solitary point outside the semifinal slots and with an Elo rating nudging 1600, their plot line has charted in the wrong direction. If this was an end-of-the-hospital-bed chart, you’d fear for the patient’s future. Coaches David Nucifora, Pat Lam and local legend Sir John Kirwan would come. Nucifora, Lam and Kirwan would go . . . title-less. Now the chalice has been handed to Hurricanes stalwart Tana Umaga. His first season in charge has been one of frustration and false dawns. His Blues have turned the glorious defeat into an art form. But hope springs eternal. The ink had not dried on their 2016 obituary before expectations were raised about next year. A lot of that was due to the signing of code-hopping superstar Sonny Bill Williams. The 30-year-old brings with him not only one of the most dynamic skillsets in the sport, but also a phenomenal record of success. Teams he plays for tend to win. “Rugby is a ruthless game and results are what matters,” he said on signing for the Blues. “The Blues have so much talent and have come on in leaps and bounds this year but when you’re in a conference like New Zealand, with four of the best teams in Super Rugby, it’s hard.” He is right about that. You only need to look once more at those Elo graphs for empirical evidence. There was an old maxim that New Zealand rugby was strong when Auckland rugby was strong. The professional contracting environment means that no longer holds true, yet there is no doubt New Zealand Rugby would prefer it if the country’s commercial and population powerbase had a professional franchise it could embrace. That desire might be difficult to represent as an Elo number, but you can take it as read it would be higher than the miserable 1399.536 they finished on in 2015.
HExplore the interactive feature at insights.nzherald.co.nz to see how your team ranks