Unless you are fully loaded, fully equipped, to consistently challenge the menacing Blues forward pack, don’t bother turning up to Eden Park.
The Blues, as they marched into their second Super Rugby final in three years with consummate ease, delivered anotherclear illustration of their brutal blueprint to crush the Brumbies 34-20 and prolong Australia’s wretched playoff run in New Zealand.
One moment in the second half summed up Cotter’s hardline mantra. Replacement halfback Taufa Funaki tried an audacious backwards chip kick that backfired to turnover possession.
The Blues were leading by 14 points but Cotter was unimpressed – letting out a spray from the coaching box. Such adventure was not in the playbook.
The Brumbies, riding a seven-game winning run, arrived with hope of upsetting the odds. Yet it was immediately evident they would suffer the same fate as 18 of their counterparts to lose finals matches on this side of the ditch.
That not one Australian team have managed to win a playoff match in New Zealand underlines one of Super Rugby’s glaring issues.
Such concerns are irrelevant for the Blues, though.
Hoskins Sotutu scored his 12th try of the season, equalling the Super Rugby record for a forward. Photo / Photosport
Cotter’s Blues won’t win any beauty pageant prizes. No one in Auckland’s long-suffering rugby region will care, though, if this team break their 21-year drought for a fully fledged Super Rugby crown.
With an extra day’s rest before next week’s finale the Blues have the benefit of sitting back to watch the Hurricanes and Chiefs take lumps out of each other in Wellington on Saturday to earn the right to join them and contest this year’s title.
A Chiefs upset would allow the Blues to return to Eden Park, where they have won their past 15 matches in a row, next week.
Should the Hurricanes ride their compelling campaign to defeat the Chiefs for the third time this year, they will retain home advantage for the decider.
Either way, an engrossing all-Kiwi final awaits.
“It’s like choosing between the plague and cholera,” Cotter quipped of which opponent the Blues would rather face. “It will be the team that wins and we’ll prepare for them.
“I’m really happy this group gets to go to a final and gets a crack at it. We’ll enjoy this moment but know the responsibility comes as soon as we’re in on Monday.”
In a match largely fought in the air and in the scrap between the big boys for inches on ground, the Blues were never seriously troubled.
There was no sign of finals nerves as the Blues overcame Patrick Tuipulotu’s absence to set the tone early. They crossed in the second minute and claimed four tries inside the opening quarter to leave the visitors rocked and rattled.
Leading 24-6, it was a throwback to the Blues’ 46-7 regular-season domination of the Brumbies at this venue in April.
Once again, with the Brumbies losing Wallabies prop James Slipper and starting lock Tom Hooper before kickoff, the Blues owned the scrum and dominated through the middle with powerful, direct carries which allowed Harry Plummer to calmly pull the strings.
Defensively the Blues were superb, too.
Tries from Wallabies loose forward Rob Valetini, one of the Brumbies’ best, and replacement Luke Reimer maintained a somewhat respectable scoreline but they were never in the fight.
Despite beating three Kiwi teams this year – the Highlanders, Crusaders and Hurricanes – the Brumbies finished well short of the top echelon.
Sam Darry of the Blues celebrates scoring against the Brumbies. Photo / Getty Images
Muted celebrations from the Blues at the final whistle speak to their single-minded mission. They’ve never been too high or too low this season.
With the final hurdle in sight, that won’t change. Cotter will ensure as much. His old-school, hard-nosed edge was just what the Blues needed.
Their only concern is whether stand-in skipper Dalton Papali’i, who underlined his importance with a try-saving tackle on Corey Toole, can prove his fitness after failing a head injury assessment.
“I did fail but I talked to doc and it was the memory one. I thought you had to say the ones you missed. I’m going to be doing another one because I didn’t understand. That was my bad,” Papali’i said. “I’m sweet I got a hit to the mouth and I’m already missing a tooth so I was trying to check if all my teeth were there.”
One more week, one more victory, for Super Rugby’s bullies to overcome the weight of history. Their past two years of playoff failings, including the deflating 2022 loss in the final to the Crusaders at Eden Park, loom large as the seek to prove they are, indeed, the real deal.
“I remember that year pretty clearly. We lost our first game and then we went unbeaten 15 games to the final,” Papali’i recalled of the 2022 campaign. “We might have had that in the back of our mind that it was just going to happen. We’ve been reminded twice this year, once against the Canes and Crusaders, that we can’t leave anything unchecked.
“We can celebrate a little making it to a final because we all know it’s a tough season. Making a final takes a lot of heart but we’ve got one more job to do. We’ve been in this position and we’ve failed so we know what’s on the line.”
