Blues know rapid fix vital
Players’ anxiety to nail first win of season didn’t help in Argentina, says Coventry
It will be back to the drawing board, literally, for the Blues as they prepare for a confident Sunwolves team when they meet at QBE Stadium in Albany on Saturday.
The side have had to travel 24 hours back from Buenos Aires and as a result probably will spend more time in the classroom looking at their game and where they need to be improving than on the training pitch in the early part of this week.
Assistant coach Tom Coventry said after Sunday’s 19-23 loss to the Jaguares that the side appeared to be suffering anxiety in their quest for their first win.
“We weren’t very good at taking our opportunities, of which we had plenty,” he said.
“There was a little bit of angst around trying to get the job done today and we probably just lacked a bit of composure and continuity between the backs and forwards today at various times,” he said.
It was a case of attacking wisely through the pack and then releasing the ball when the Blues created enough pressure. They were not getting that right and were releasing the ball when they hadn’t quite broken the back of the opposition defence.
They were also not maximising the lineout ball they were winning and were looking more like the team who were under pressure than the team defending in their own 22.
The Blues needed to show more composure.
The Jaguares had defended well, and the Blues had been guilty of trying to go through them too much in the midfield, instead of putting ball in behind them more often.
“That’s something for us to address. It’s going to have to be a quick fix obviously leading into the Sunwolves.
“We’re not very happy about our
continuity play . . . and we have to keep working hard and make sure we’re better,” he said.
While there had been a last-gasp chance to snatch the win after the final hooter when setting a 5m scrum, unfortunately they had turned it over.
The final scrum had been a 50-50 situation and it was more the Blues’ fault than anything else.
“We probably didn’t execute there as well as we would have liked. It wasn’t a clear feed to the scrum and we certainly weren’t going forward, it was probably more sideways movement. We’re more to blame than the ref in that instance,” he said.
Earlier, prop Ofa Tuungafasi had been denied a try when the TMO couldn’t see a clear grounding.
“The disallowed try was pretty tough to take considering the call was he [the referee] was looking for some reason not to give the try. I couldn’t see it. We had a couple of those go against us, but we’ve got to be better than that.”
They had opportunities in the opposition 22m area but they hadn’t executed well under pressure to take their chances.
“There’s no excuses, we’ve just got to be better,” he said.
It was a good competition, with plenty of good teams being beaten. The Blues were in it but they were going to have to be better to get their first win of the season at the weekend.
“At times we left our system and were trying quite hard to get the ball over the tryline on our own, rather than sticking to what we’d practised. That’s a team under a little bit of anxiety to score and get a win on the board.
“We just need to trust each other, be a little more calculated how we go about that, be more patient and build pressure.
“It’s about improvement. We haven’t been top of the pops for a while, and we didn’t expect it to be easy to change the way we’re playing and get our public back on side.
“I can assure you they’re working hard, and we’re close. But not close enough yet.”
At times we left our
system and were trying quite hard to get the ball over the tryline on our own, rather than sticking to what we’d practised.
Tom Coventry, Blues assistant coach