Chris Rattue: Writing on the wall for Lam

Blues coach Pat Lam. Photo / Brett Phibbs

The writing is on the wall for the Blues coach Pat Lam after a woeful effort in Hamilton. Lam won't last past this season and on what we've seen so far, there may be a case for relieving him of his duties before this long Super 15 campaign comes to what will be a depressingly inevitable conclusion for his hopeless mob.

If anyone had any doubts about just how bad Lam's Blues are, then they would have been dispelled by watching the fabulous encounter between the Highlanders and Crusaders in the Dunedin Glasshouse on Saturday night.

This unique New Zealand stadium might be the unfortunate banana skin on which the Otago rugby union has gone slipping towards oblivion. But it is still superb and a packed, enclosed, purpose built football arena helped inspire a cracking game between the southern rivals. It was a muscular, brutal contest with just enough attack to qualify it as an modern epic.

The Highlanders deserved their narrow victory, although they were a little short in the brain cell department at the end, trusting the scoreboard clock a second time, having already found it wanting when they kicked for touch to end the game with three minutes left to play.

Rugby's balance of power has shifted back to the South Island, just as it was in some of the good old days of Super rugby.

The Highlanders have already shown that their promising 2011 season was a stepping stone, that they are leading 2012 title contenders. Their no-holds-barred approach in the forwards is significantly strengthened by the arrival of Andrew Hore, who is setting the tone in a way that the Blues' high-profile recruits ain't.

The Highlanders have also cobbled together a potentially threatening backline with new recruit Hosea Gear - a crowd favourite and cause celebre among those who despaired at the All Blacks utility approach on the wing - ready to rise again.

A long way further north, the Blues are in collapse mode and what occurred against the Chiefs - following the last-gasp Crusaders disaster - was confirmation that the Lam era is going nowhere.

Indeed, the Blues could now be rated as the worst of the New Zealand sides which is absolutely no surprise at all. Unfortunately, the signs were on the wall in the weeks leading into the season when it emerged that Tony Woodcock had granted himself a wee holiday, Piri Weepu would not hit the new season in top condition, and Ma'a Nonu would not hit the new season at all thanks to his Japanese sojourn. With Weepu a halfback option, Alby Mathewson looks befuddled, and maybe even pissed off.

The name of the game in the Super 15 is to win your conference, which means a slow start against the Crusaders and Chiefs has ceded vital early ground - if only psychologically - to conference rivals.

After the humiliating Chiefs defeat, Lam was quoted as saying: "It's not the way you start, it's the way you come back." But that only counts if you can see the likelihood of a comeback.

The Chiefs operated in excellent bursts and Dave Rennie is an outstanding coaching prospect, but they will face much tougher tests than what the Blues presented on Friday night. Where do you start in pulling the Blues apart. The lineouts aren't a bad place, where test veterans Keven Mealamu and Ali Williams, plus Anthony Boric and Jerome Kaino, are struggling big time.

The game is just about up for Lam, who has about a 50 per cent win record in just over three seasons with the Blues, in which they have finished lower mid-table twice, and snuck a wildcard entry into the finals last year. There comes a time in any coaching career, in the absence of grand final appearances, where you need to detect signs of genuine, deep-seated progress, or at least a few rays of hope.

I can't detect that with Lam's Blues, although you try to retain hope. They actually look worse than ever, something the players themselves appear to accept judging by Williams, who is advocating strongly worded heart-to-heart sessions to sort the mess out. Similarly, Mealamu's usual good nature is on the wane. He is close to coming across as grumpy.

Little wonder. Rene Ranger is the sole attacking force of a quality that should be expected of the Blues, and even there, the Northlander has to go looking for off-the-cuff opportunities.

The rot is set deep in this organisation. Maybe the Blues could get Mark "Hitman" Hammett in as coach for a couple of seasons, to clean the place out, to create a ground zero. He might take a wander around the halls of power as well.

MAGIC MOMENT

Andrew Hore's scrambling up-the-guts try for the Highlanders - the gnarled forward is in wonderful form.