KEY POINTS:
The Blues will do a bit of mix and match when they take on the Queensland Reds in a Super 14 pre-season rugby match in Brisbane on Thursday night.
Coach David Nucifora is due to name his starting 15 tomorrow, but he said today that all the players
he took with him across the Tasman would get a run on Ballymore.
"Our team will be a bit of a mixture and everyone who's fit will get game time," he said.
A number of the Blues' squad will not make the trip because of injury and personal reasons.
Flanker Daniel Braid is the main injury concern with a shoulder problem and Nucifora conceded that last year's New Zealand player of the year was "touch and go" to be fit for the start of the Super 14 in 2-1/2 weeks.
Others being rested against the Reds are skipper Troy Flavell, No 8 Nick Williams, midfield back Benson Stanley and halfback Danny Lee.
Flavell received a minor foot injury and Stanley a head knock in the Blues' internal trial match last Friday, while Williams is returning from a shoulder injury and Lee from the broken leg he suffered last September while leading Hawke's Bay in the Air NZ Cup.
Nucifora said the plan was to have Williams and Lee in the side when the Blues take on the Highlanders in another pre-season match next week.
Prop John Afoa would also miss the fixture against the Reds because his wife had just given birth.
Nucifora described the match last Friday between the Blues and a selection of promising players within the franchise area as more of training run, but it gave his players their first experience of the new experimental laws.
"You really don't know what to expect until you see it happen in front of you," he said.
"Now it gives us a bit more to go on. The big thing at this level of football is to have the awareness of what's going to happen, so you can react and respond, and now they have a bit of a feeling for it."
Nucifora said the law changes had done what he had expected in terms of speeding up the game, "there's no doubt about that".
It was now a case of the Blues' using the new rules to the best advantage, something every team would be doing according to their own strengths and weaknesses.
Nucifora expected the opening stages of the Super 14 to be a feeling out period.
"There will be a real transition phase in how the teams use the laws and adapt to them," he said.
"The first few weeks will be a lot of looking at what everyone else is doing and seeing how they are trying to adapt to things."
- NZPA