Blues players celebrate a try against the Highlanders. Photo / Photosport
Blues players celebrate a try against the Highlanders. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
It's too much of a stretch to imagine that Super Rugby Aotearoa is going to end up anything other than a straight shootout between the Blues and Crusaders.
After three rounds, there's no compelling reason to think anything else.
The Hurricanes were a late bloomer last year but theirtight five appear to have gone a long way backwards this year and if they are going to revive and be a contender, then the transformation required will be phenomenal.
The Chiefs, strangely, despite continuing to lose, look to be doing so with more promise than they did last year. It's probably utterly mad to see something in them and yet there is just this hint of them being one stroke of good luck away from coming right.
But even if they do find a little confidence and cohesion, it will only be enough to drag them one place off the bottom.
Predicting the Highlanders' trajectory is almost impossible as they have rattled the Crusaders, fought back from nowhere to beat the Chiefs and then rolled over and died without showing anything at Eden Park.
They will most likely be up and down for the remainder of the season – the only certainty being that even when they are on, they aren't in the same class as either the Blues or Crusaders.
A five-team competition is really now a two-team competition. The Highlanders, Chiefs and Hurricanes are not much more than obstacles for the other two to negotiate.
None, however, look quite good enough to classify as genuine banana skins.
From the rugby so far, the Blues and Crusaders would have to try quite hard to lose to the other three. The gap is significant and the intensity of last year is a distant memory.
The Crusaders have won three games in 2021 without making anything close to a statement performance. They have been good where and when they have needed to be, but they haven't been scary the way they were for long periods of last year. Or indeed for long periods of the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons.
Will Jordan of the Crusaders. Photo / Photosport
In all probability we haven't seen the best of them yet because no one has drawn the best out of them.
They have been able to get away with some sloppiness and lethargy and they have definitely been able to get away with persistent ill-discipline.
The Blues, too, have been good without ever giving the sense they are anywhere near the peak of their ability.
Like the Crusaders they have dominated because their set-piece is now not only ultra-reliable, but consistently impressive.
So too has their defence been of such quality that between their scrummaging, lineout driving and tackling, they have been able to post two good wins while also being guilty of an unforced error count that has been higher than they would consider acceptable.
It would be unfair to say the Blues and Crusaders have been cruising – mechanically grinding out results knowing they would win if they could stay in third gear.
But that said, both, would most likely agree that they have been targeting this week's clash at Eden Park against each other as the one in which they have to step up the accuracy and intensity of their performances.
Sunday's fixture will end the phoney war. Proper rugby will break out next weekend – the sort we consistently saw last year but haven't sighted in 2021.
We will see a fundamental shift in speed and ferocity because the attitudes and mindsets of both teams will be harder: edgier and more focused – knowing as they will that mistakes will be punished in a way they haven't so far.
The Blues, for all that they were in control on Sunday and were never threatened, lacked a ruthless streak leading into halftime when the Highlanders were scrambling with 14 men.
They blew one dead-set opportunity – dropping the ball as their driving maul ploughed over the tryline.
It didn't matter against the Highlanders – but that sort of flagrancy will damage their ambitions when they play the Crusaders.
Everything changes next week to a world where half opportunities have to be converted. It becomes a world where there won't be soft scrums or easy ways to relieve the pressure as there has been.
Essentially what will happen is that both the Blues and the Crusaders are going to have to show us what else they have got.
They won't be able to just scrum to victory or drive lineouts for unrestricted metres.
We will need to see something more and regain that sense of Super Rugby Aotearoa being the toughest club competition in the world.
