KEY POINTS:
Player management will be the major theme of the Blues' closing charge towards the playoffs.
With nine games behind them - eight of them won - the Blues, barring the most dramatic implosion, are home and hosed.
But the mission is not to crawl into the finals, it
is to reach the business end with real momentum and with the players still snorting fire. To do that, coach David Nucifora is going to have shuffle his deck carefully as the next four weeks loom as the most physically and mentally demanding of the campaign so far.
The Sharks await on Saturday night and, with the Cheetahs having provided a bruising encounter on Friday, there will be some bodies in need of rest.
Nucifora is mindful that lurking behind the Sharks are games against the Stormers and Bulls in South Africa, with a tricky clash against the Force on the way home.
Ideally Nucifora wants to pull off the double-whammy of winning every game while keeping his players injury-free and relatively fresh.
"We will have to keep managing the guys really well," he said. "We have got some particularly hard games of football coming up against good teams and after next week we have got a travel component in there as well.
"Player management is going to be important and, again, individual performance within the team is going to be important for guys to be able to keep putting their hand up for their positions."
Making Nucifora's life easier is the fact he has players in form right throughout his squad.
It makes little difference whether he selects Keven Mealamu or Derren Witcombe at hooker. Ali Williams was hugely impressive against the Cheetahs where he played like a man acutely aware that he needed to deliver something compelling if he was to get another start.
Greg Rawlinson has been thundering around with a dynamism that belies his behemoth frame and has even found some subtle touches to ice the package.
With all three South African teams that await sure to knock lumps out of the Blues, Nucifora can rotate Rawlinson, Williams and Troy Flavell to achieve his goals.
In the back row, too, Nick Williams could be sent into battle over the next few weeks to allow Jerome Kaino some rest time. With Angus MacDonald and Justin Collins both making contributions every time they play, there is opportunity to tweak the mix of the loose forwards.
Onasa'i Tololima-Auva'a is likely to be spotted wearing seven at some stage as Daniel Braid has missed only 10 minutes of action this campaign and that was only so he could get a nasty head wound attended to.
The story is much the same at halfback where Steve Devine and David Gibson have proven interchangeable. Out further, Nucifora has so many options he can sleep easy knowing that it makes little odds at the moment who he puts on the team sheet.
Except maybe for one man who is proving to be indispensable - Isaia Toeava. The youngster, touted for stardom in 2005, is now living up to his billing.
Against the Cheetahs he was the man who made the difference. He had the strength and pace to break the defence and the vision to cash in on the opportunity.
"The pleasing thing is that the backs as a unit are starting to read each other's style of play, and once they get a sense of something happening they are reacting," said Nucifora. "They are starting to gel as a unit and Ice [Toeava] is proving to be one of the major weapons through that midfield."
