Ali Williams and Sir John Kirwan react after the Blues' defeat to the Highlanders. Photo /Getty Images
The Blues came to Dunedin on the brink of Super Rugby oblivion. They are now tumbling into the abyss. An early season meteorite, they imploded in Dunedin tonight and are nothing but dust now.
Losing to the competition's bottom side is hard enough to swallow - but the Blues were thumped. The three tries they scored to claw back some respectability (the fourth came after the hooter) shouldn't be allowed to distort the facts: they were given a hiding.
Drilled, bashed, hammered, trounced, spanked - quite catastrophically taken to the cleaners and put through a heavy duty wash.
No one, surely, had any inkling a game of this nature was lurking. The Blues; insipid, bumbling, feckless effort last week had all the hallmarks of an aberration. It had been a distracting week; the weather was bad, too many young minds had been distracted by the All Black camp.
The riot act read, normal service would resume against the Highlanders. Not even close. After half an hour the Highlanders had only been forced to make 16 tackles and the Blues were 29-0 down. To the Highlanders?
The bottom-placed, can't play for toffee, Highlanders? The Highlanders, who up until tonight, had stayed true to their Scottish roots in the way they have gone about being awful: stoic, dour and functional - an almost Presbyterian commitment to being painfully bland.
As history is always written by the victors, no doubt in time this game will be fingered as the one were something clicked within the Highlanders and they found the cohesion that had been previously missing. Much like Mark Twain's death, those claims would be greatly exaggerated.
The real story is that the Blues were, almost unbelievably, worse than they had been last week against the Brumbies. All in white, they looked like ghosts - played like ghosts.
There were some ugly sights: Ali Williams' constant look of confusion and need to berate referee Jonathon White, frankly, became rather tedious. He needed to let it lie - he was never going to win. In the long history of frustrated players versus officious referees, there hasn't even been a draw.
His willingness to scrap with Fumiaki Tanaka - the Highlanders halfback who needs to sit on a cushion to see over the steering wheel - wasn't a great look. Still, he caused some amusement by hauling a roll of money out of his sock and handing it to Andrew Hore - a debt being settled by one of the characters of the game.
The worst sight of all, though, was Piri Weepu being stretchered off after taking a serious blow to his head. The medical staff were obviously concerned and it would be no surprise to hear that the All Black halfback is not in contention to play this week against France.
Those were the specifics. The general list of failings makes for a longer read. The Blues lost all semblance of discipline for the first 50 minutes. Their scrum, having made some pleasing advances in recent weeks, will be back to the remedial class during the June break and their lineout won't be far behind. Ball retention was probably a D-; their tackling about the same and they lacked enterprise and fluidity.
The first signs things were going badly came early when the brilliant Ben Smith was able to scramble through the middle of a ruck and score a try. And for the next 30 minutes it was all Highlanders. They had all the ball, all the territory and played all the rugby. Their tries weren't so much well worked as simply worked: they ran hard and straight, held onto the ball for long enough that things opened up.
As the score mounted, the Blues didn't seem to understand the gravity of the situation or were simply unable to do anything about it. The game continued to pass them by; they were powerless. It was almost as if they were too stunned to react.
The sense of desperation finally bedded in way too late. Waisake Naholo stormed over on the stroke of half-time and further tries came from Rene Ranger and Steven Luatua, but they didn't bring any conviction that it would be game on.
Coach John Kirwan has talked of a roller coaster season. Tonight was definitely a downward slide - the question is, though, when will it stop? More worryingly - will it stop? What once appeared to be an aberration may in fact be terminal.
Highlanders 38 (B. Smith (2), T. Ellison, H. Gear tries; C. Slade 2 cons, 2 pens; H. Parker pen) Blues 28 (W. Naholo, R. Ranger, S. Luatua, L. Braid tries; B. Kerr 4 cons)