Blues run rampant against Rebels
Home sweet home. Leon MacDonald’s Blues celebrated their first match at Eden Park in over a month with their best attacking performance of the Super Rugby Pacific season to underline their 2022 title credentials last night.
The Blues buried an outmatched Melbourne Rebels side with an attacking masterclass to run in 11 tries, seven of them coming in a spectacular first half, to extend their win streak to 10 – now just two short of the franchise record mark of the 1997 championship-winning outfit.
The Blues were buoyed by a hattrick performance from centre Rieko Ioane, who carried for 121 metres, beat seven defenders and unleashed two clean breaks.
MacDonald would be rapt with the performances of all his men. Prop Ofa Tuungafasi showed some welcome deft touches to go with the power stuff, Akira Ioane, in just his second match of the year, was impressive with two tries and 100m on the carry, while James Tucker, Kurt Eklund and Hoskins Sotutu were impressive up front, and Stephen Perofeta, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Caleb Clarke and Mark Telea quality out wide.
It had started so unpromisingly, the Blues producing an over-thrown lineout and a blind pass from halfback Fin Christie to cough up converted tries to prop Pone Fa’amausii and lock Josh Canham inside the first half-dozen minutes, for an early 0-14 hole.
It mattered not. From there the home side awoke from its slumber and seized control of the match with a withering burst of seven tries in 33
minutes to turn that early deficit into a 47-14 halftime lead, with the Rebels missing an astonishing 19 first-half tackles.
Some of it was Blues brilliance, and some of it was cardboard cutoutlevel defence. But the home side showcased a full array of skills with some superb handling as they ran in two quick tries in a half-dozen minutes to flanker Akira Ioane to level at 14-14 by the 13th minute, and then simply left the visitors in their dust.
With a dazzling array of brilliance halfback Fin Christie, Tucker, Sotutu, Rieko Ioane and Telea (with a spectacular acrobatic finish in the right corner) all got in on the act as the Blues unleashed the ball-in-hand magic that been only a sporadic feature of their game hither to.
Some of it was truly special as the home side ran for 341 first-half metres and forced the Aussies to miss nigh on one in five of their tackles attempted. The handling up front was spectacular, while Christie, Rieko