Rugby: Blues try to master game of patience

Blues captain Benson Stanley aims to mix up the play tonight. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Happiness is a compliant hamstring. Well it is for Blues midfielder Benson Stanley, who tore his from the bone before the end of the opening Super 14 game last season.

Instead of continuing on to travel west from Perth to South Africa, Stanley headed home for an operation after damaging his leg against the Force.

His Super 14 campaign was over and the injury left him with an awkward and under-prepared return to captain Auckland in the national championship.

He survived though, made the Super 14 cut again and after a fortnight family holiday in Fiji, hoed into his fitness work before Christmas.

"It was full on. They are keen to get our bodies smacking into shape then and doing enough gradual work so that we do not shock the system," Stanley said. "Once you are into it, it is your responsibility to do all the work and be ready to go. My hamstring stayed together.

"In the early days of recovery it took me half a week to feel comfortable again after games and it still needs to get a bit more strength, but it seems to be going in the right direction."

With Luke McAlister unfit for the competition start this year, Stanley squared off against a Hurricanes midfield of Ma'a Nonu and Conrad Smith as the series began last week.

The 25-year-old was steady, a reasoned voice on tactics and progress for the star-laden troops around him, the defensive bulwark as he showed with a particularly crunching welcome for debut Hurricane Aaron Cruden.

"Yeah I've got all these hotshots round me," Stanley grinned.

"I'm the boring one; Mr Conservative you know," he said laughing even more. "No, really I don't think we see it anything like that, we all have to work extra hard but there is enough fun from time to time.

"We do have a lot of exciting players, as is always the case, but in this sort of competition it is the team which gets behind each other and works hard for each other which will do well."

There were glimpses of that chemistry last week and the team was pretty tight and had to have the belief to keep going and not worry too much about what happened outside the team, the midfielder said.

The Blues thought they would keep the ball rolling after a strong opening half last week, but penalties and pattern changes did not help.

"But we have to be ready for that and we did not cope well with the change in momentum. We also went away a bit from what we should have been doing but they are things which can happen at this early stage of the competition," Stanley said.

"All teams are trying to speed the play up and that can be done with the changes in the way the laws are being ruled. If sides can do that then they will find more attacking space.

"We are learning just as all the other teams are feeling their way on the interpretations and what it all means."

The Blues had come up with some new ideas after analysing game one and they wanted to be able to mix up their play tonight in Dunedin.

"It is all about building pressure," Stanley said.

"We don't have to score off the first few phases, we have to have patience to make our moves when it's on. That could come in the 70th or 75th minute, but we have to be prepared for that.

"That comes with being mentally strong, being tough enough in a long arm-wrestle instead of just trying to blow sides off the park quickly.

"That is the objective, but it is not always possible."

The Blues may have been a bit anxious against the Hurricanes, said Stanley. But after faltering in that opening match, tonight is an opportunity to put things right.