By WYNNE GRAY
They have dealt with the pains, and now the Blues are working on the gains they need to make for Friday's Super 12 showdown with the Canterbury Crusaders.
After the shock of the 25-32 loss to the Chiefs, the Blues endured chapter two of the misery as they watched a video replay of their Albany defeat. It would have qualified as a video nasty, especially when the Blues had to critique their own work.
"To be honest, that is pretty tough when you have to assess your own performance in front of your mates," said technical adviser Grant Fox.
That done, the Blues met yesterday to find out who would be playing the Crusaders and what tactics the coaching staff had devised for the match in Christchurch.
Four changes were made. Lock Robin Brooke finally returns to captain his team after injury removed him from the opening two matches, Finau Maka gets his chance as openside flanker, Davin Heaps will play hooker if he gets a clearance from health problems and Craig Innes is in the midfield.
The discards are Justin Collins, Charles Riechelmann, Keven Mealamu and Walter Little.
"We talked through our game plan, discussed it, bought into it and then went to work on the execution," said Fox.
Fox agreed that the backline had gone away from the game plan against the Chiefs but he still had faith in the ability of lynchpin Orene Ai'i and his cohorts to do the business.
Adjustments were needed, though. The levels of communication had to be raised, there had to be better organisation and decision-making, and error rates had to be reduced. The Blues felt they lost the game last week rather than the Chiefs won it.
"We did not stick to the game plan and if we had we would have won," said Fox. "Perhaps we got such a fast start that we could not believe it and we went to sleep in the game.
"What it has done is put a lot more emphasis on this as a must-win scenario if we are to stay in touch with the frontrunners in this competition. It might have been looked on as getting a bonus win to start against the Brumbies, but there is now a lot of pressure for this game."
Blues: Hayden Taylor, Joeli Vidiri, Eroni Clarke, Doug Howlett, Craig Innes, Orene Ai'i, Mark Robinson, Xavier Rush, Finau Maka, Robin Brooke (capt), Troy Flavell, Andrew Blowers, Craig Dowd, Davin Heaps or Keven Mealamu, Paul Thomson. Reserves: Iliesa Tanivula, Walter Little, Ben Meyer, Justin Collins, Charles Riechelmann, Nick White, Keven Mealamu or James Christian.
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