Christchurch plan will reveal true Blues
The Blues have been poked and probed in the past three weeks, flipped about and smacked from most angles and yielded nothing.
None of the Hurricanes, Chiefs or Highlanders were able to locate a soft underbelly. None could find a means to prolong the pressure to the point of forcing something within the Blues to crack, and three games so far have brought three impressive victories.
The Blues now have everyone’s attention. They have earned the right to be taken seriously and yet while it has been a significant feat to pass the examinations Super Rugby Aotearoa has so far set, judgement about their true state of readiness to win this competition will be made only this weekend.
There’s nothing more likely to expose vulnerability than a midwinter visit to Christchurch.
Playing the Crusaders on their home patch is the metaphoric Gestapo interrogation: it’s a bright light in the eyes experience. A torrid affair that will find and manipulate weakness to the point of surrender.
It is now four years since the Crusaders lost a Super Rugby match in Christchurch. That was to the Hurricanes in 2016, and three weeks after that happened, captain Dane Coles was holding aloft the Super Rugby trophy.
That says it all. What separates a good team from a champion team is the ability to win in Christchurch. That’s the key to Super Rugby — beat the Crusaders on their home patch and one hand goes on the trophy.
The Crusaders did lose to the British and Irish Lions in 2017, but the fact the tourists picked what was effectively their test team and still only scraped the victory, accentuates what sort of performance it takes for the visiting team to win in Christchurch.
And this is why so much will be learned about the Blues this weekend, as playing in Christchurch first demands teams to ask whether they really see themselves as potential champions.
To answer that, they have to ask whether they are travelling with the intent to win or contain the defeat to a respectable margin.
Plenty of teams in the past few years have convinced themselves they were genuinely there chasing victory, but their game plan and execution said otherwise.
The Crusaders can sniff weakness like a shark. Give them just a hint that a visiting team is playing out for time — passively rather than actively managing their strategy — and it will be all over by halftime.
When the Hurricanes won in 2016, they were fearless. There was a determination about them that night which unsettled the Crusaders.
The Hurricanes supposedly had a weak tight five and yet they came at the Crusaders through the middle. Everything was calculated to upset the Crusaders’ understanding of what they were facing, and the Hurricanes played with an urgency and certainty that made it clear they were chasing victory, not respect.
So the Blues will have to ask themselves this week what level of contentment they would derive from getting close against actually winning, and the answer will become evident in the game plan they adopt and the attitude they produce.
If there to win, the Blues will take the same approach as the Hurricanes did in 2016 and leave the Crusaders uncertain about what they are facing.
That requires a relentlessly aggressive mindset that sees only opportunity and not threat. It requires attacking the Crusaders lineout. Patrick Tuipulotu will look Sam Whitelock in the eye and let him know he’s not afraid to take him on in the air.
Tuipulotu has been the best lock in the country this year. But if he’s honest, he’ll know that he’s seen by his opponent as a great ball carrier and tackler and not a great lineout forward.
If the Blues are there to win, they will hold their discipline at the offside line and trust their timing and line speed to produce the aggressive defence that has made them so hard to break down in recent weeks.
And if they are to win, they will be prepared to take attacking risks — to trust that if they can create space for Caleb Clarke, Mark Telea, Beauden Barrett and Rieko Ioane, they will exploit it.
No side can win in Christchurch if they don’t play their natural game and so the Blues’ approach to this contest will tell us as much about their readiness as the result.