A disappointed Taine Plumtree of the Blues reacts after their defeat to the Crusaders. Photo / Photosport
A disappointed Taine Plumtree of the Blues reacts after their defeat to the Crusaders. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
Maybe it would be best to give up on the Blues. Accept now that they are a club that can't be fixed: that there is something toxic in the ecosystem that can't be flushed.
In some respect, 2021 is just another brick in the wall. One more piece ofrubble to add to the mound. The Blues have failed to deliver on their promise – a story that is as old as time.
But the way the Blues have collapsed this season and have fallen so short of expectation is not something that can be shrugged off as business as usual.
There are degrees of failure and 2021 is arguably the worst campaign the Blues have produced in the last 20 years.
They have had seasons where they have lost nearly every game. They have had seasons, 2015 springs to mind, when they played awful rugby for alarmingly long periods and operated with a defence that wasn't even good enough to be called shambolic.
This is a club that has had some terrible, terrible periods in the last 20 years, but has perhaps now reached one of the darkest of all because there is no rational means to explain their stunning inability to win a game in the last four weeks.
A disappointed Taine Plumtree of the Blues reacts after their defeat to the Crusaders. Photo / Photosport
Back in the old days there were go-to excuses. The club had average coaches. They couldn't keep players because every man and his dog – other Super Rugby clubs, NRL, AFL – were all shopping in Auckland.
They couldn't attract anyone because of Auckland's astronomical house prices, traffic congestion and provincial hatred which mean that Canterbury loyalists like Dan Carter's granny were able to dissuade their favoured sons from signing with the mortal enemy.
But all those mitigating factors have been cleaned up in the last few years. The coaching group is the equal of any in the competition.
The big names have been persuaded to come and in the last two years the Blues have bought Beauden Barrett, Nepo Laulala and Dillon Hunt – players who wouldn't have dreamed of wearing a Blues jersey not so long ago.
The Blues came into this year with the players, the strategic intellect in the coaching box and a pack that had four All Blacks props, three capped loose forwards, Rieko Ioane and Caleb Clarke.
This was a year they couldn't possibly stuff up and yet with a week still to run, they are out. They have stuffed up and what possible excuse can they mount for playing with such a perennial mad streak of ill-discipline and inaccuracy?
There was a lot of good about their work. Some genuine moments of clever and precise rugby and this year's Blues team would probably beat many, maybe even all of their predecessors dating back to the 2003 champion side.
Their set-piece has been a weapon, their defence has been solid and their attacking creativity has been obvious at times.
This team doesn't rank anywhere near the bottom of the pile in terms of the rugby they were capable of playing, but they so readily and easily interspersed what good they delivered with so much frustratingly bad.
It was a campaign defined by stupidity – which ranged from absent-minded to plain dumb. The recidivist offending at the offside line was arguably what hurt them the most.
They were averaging 12 penalties a game and it was a killer. A needless killer because how hard is it, really, to understand the difference between onside and offside?
All the brilliant work by Dalton Papalili, who was the undisputed best player not just in Christchurch, but all season, was undone by the endless procession of defenders who couldn't manage to stand just a few inches further back.
Almost as bad was the lack of composure and care at key times. Having finally got on the scoreboard against the Crusaders with an Otere Black penalty, the Blues conceded the three points straight back from the kick-off on account of an ambitious exit ploy.
The Crusaders celebrate a try in their thumping of the Blues. Photo / Photosport
It was the story of the day in Christchurch and the story of their season. Just as their whole campaign was marked by their frantic desire to push passes that were never on in an attempt to build momentum.
In their last four games, they forced their attack when all they needed was just a fraction of patience.
They did miss the presence and voice of captain Patrick Tuipulotu, but his absence can't be used to hide the fact that the Blues had everything they needed this year and still came up woefully short - afflicted by all the same old failings.
The club looks awfully like it is broken – destined to suffer the same fate no matter the coach, the squad or the circumstances.
