KEY POINTS:
It was a nervous weekend for the Blues, but one man leaving the nail-biting to others was Rudi Wulf.
The 22-year-old wing has done more than his share of fretting. In 2005 he spent six months on edge, waiting to hear if he would ever play rugby again.
Wulf, an age-grade and Sevens star, made the mistake of diving into the shallow end of a swimming pool. He had just finished his rookie Super 12 campaign with the Blues and was in camp with the New Zealand Colts team. It was a post-training recovery session and Wulf thought he would finish it with a swallow dive into the cold pool. He launched himself, failing to realise he was plunging into the shallow end and instead of catching the plane to Argentina the next day with his team-mates he was stuck in a hospital bed.
He had fractured the top cervical vertebrae of his spine. If the fracture had been unstable he would most probably have died. Hours of surgery followed and a neck-brace halo was bolted to his skull.
Then he needed three months of sitting in a Lazy Boy chair as he couldn't lie in bed because of the halo. All the time he knew his career depended on how well his bones healed. "I tried to stay positive," he recalls. "I was very lucky I had my family, fiancee and faith to support me. The surgeons had said everything depended on the bones. It took them six months to heal. I tried to block everything out - to not think about whether I would ever play again."
About a year after his accident he made his playing comeback for North Shore club Marist. By July he was playing for Harbour again and he regained his place in the Blues in 2007.
And just how far Wulf has progressed since those dark, uncertain months emerged at Eden Park last Friday night against the Hurricanes.
Wulf was the pick of the four promising wings on show. Hosea Gear was maybe more instinctive in his running ability but Wulf's performance was more rounded, more polished - certainly more in line with what All Black selectors are looking for.
Defensively Wulf was faultless. He tackled everything down his channel, covered his fullback, chased kicks and judged perfectly three times in the second half when to come off his line and attack the man.
"Defence was one of my work-ons for this season," he said. "Where I should be positionally is something I have spent a lot of time working on.
"When I'm standing in line and I see that the opposition have made space I'm trying to judge when to shut that down, to just go for it."
He got it right against the Hurricanes as he has for much of the season and must now be close to test selection. To really push his case and nudge ahead of Lelia Masaga, he needed results to go the Blues' way overnight and to get another chance to impress this weekend.
As All Black coach Graham Henry said just before the game kicked off at Eden Park: "Teams that get into the finals maybe have an advantage in terms of selection. These are the games that are closer in intensity to tests."
If the Blues don't make it, Wulf will have to rely on what he managed during the round robin which was not insignificant.
His error count was low. His finishing was sharp and his work-rate high. What really stood out was his strength. Chasing a ball close to his own line on Friday he swooped, stood up and was hammered by Rodney So'oialo.
Wulf didn't budge, though. He worked to stay big in the tackle, rode it out and didn't allow the Hurricanes skipper to drive him over his own line.
"I am about 98kg now," says Wulf. "I am the strongest I have ever been. But I have to be. There are some pretty big wings out there."
Strong, fast and equipped with a good football brain, Wulf is a vastly upgraded version of Caleb Ralph. He hasn't heard anything from the All Black selectors but: "I'm hopeful. Maybe no news is good news."
