Tana Umaga. Photo / Getty
COMMENT:
So it wasn't the coaching. The Blues' limp end to their (very) limited chances of making the Super Rugby playoffs proved that.
In the end, while the Blues improved a little this year, new coach Leon MacDonald and his team ultimately made little difference. Tana Umaga, Sir John Kirwan, Pat Lam, whoever – there's not been much between them in terms of results.
The much-maligned Lam was the last coach to get the Blues to the playoffs, in 2011, when they lost the semifinal to the Reds.
So that leaves the players - although Friday night's loss against the Reds was another demonstration that, when you are down, fate dons its bleeding great steel-tipped work boots and gives you a savage kicking in the ribs.
Referee Brendon Pickerill's call that halfback Augustine Pulu didn't release the ball before scoring what would have been his third try was debatable; Pulu wasn't held; the tacklers had fallen off him. The safe play was to release and re-gather anyway but it's hard to criticise Pulu for his instinct to keep going.
While that call was contestable, what about the two forward passes in the final movement which led to Scott Higginbotham's match-winning try? Neither Pickerill, the two assistant refs nor the TMO made any mention of those; the resulting 14-point swing from the two tries – one disallowed, the other happily evading the forward pass rules – was enough for the Blues to yet again drop the lollies.
Yet we can't blame refs for the Blues' season. That's down to three factors: competence, composure and killer instinct – or the lack of.
The Blues 8, 9, 10 axis has again been lacking this year. Akira Ioane has clearly been told by the All Black selectors to concentrate on the hard work at the collision and other phases. In so doing, he has lost his free-ranging ability to beat tacklers with power and speed – skills a team like the Blues can feed on.
At halfback, Pulu's performance against the Reds made you wonder why the Blues preferred Jonathan Ruru for most of the season. There were a lot of mistakes at halfback, no matter who played there; some of the passing was not top drawer.
But the biggest and most obvious lack was at first-five. True, Stephen Perofeta – who showed his potential in that win over the British and Irish Lions in 2017 – was unavailable all season. Otere Black, mentioned by many as a serious All Black option when Damian McKenzie was injured, revealed Super Rugby to be probably the highest level he will attain.
Harry Plummer has undoubted potential; his running at the line shows promise as does his willingness to get involved. But there are too many mistakes in his game right now – a shoddy pass to Ma'a Nonu when the Blues were pressing hard against the Reds was just another in a long line of errors made at crucial phases all season.
Plummer's goalkicking was lacking too. The team which once saw success underlined by Grant Fox's ice-cool, killer instinct kicking expects more than the sliced effort to win the drawn game against the Bulls last weekend.
The shortcomings at 10 were exacerbated all season by a team unable to press things home when they had the advantage. Against the Bulls, the Blues had the winning of the match until errors and a lack of composure saw the Bulls escape with a draw. Plummer missed a key touch as well as that last-minute goal.
Against the Reds, the Blues had control and did enough to win; they led, relaxed, let the other side back in, led again, relaxed, made errors and lost the game in that 14-point swing. You can point at the ref but Pulu's decision to press for the try instead of what MacDonald & co have been telling them all year (hold the ball) was also costly.
Setting up the ruck and throwing more attacking waves at a scrambling Reds outfit was the way to go. That lack of composure and patience told…again.
Skipper Patrick Tuipulotu often passed up kickable penalties and scoreboard pressure in favour of lineouts closer to the goal line – from which they launched attacks which didn't come to anything because of, you guessed it, a lack of composure. They were on-field decisions but you wonder why the coaching team didn't impose their will.
The Blues once again showed their ability to make good players look a bit ordinary. Rieko Ioane is living proof of the Blues' late-season decline – in sumptuous form in the early rounds, he became more muted as the season progressed, an obvious sign of the Blues' inability to use him to maximum effect.
Next year, there will be no Nonu, Sonny Bill Williams, Melani Nanai and lock Scott Scrafton – so it looks like yet another year of re-building.
Only, with the Blues, "re-building" has come to mean something else. It's like re-building a house where the foundations are in place every year – but you never quite manage to put the roof on.