Rugby: Go hard or go home says Blues coach Tana Umaga

Melani Nanai of the Blues. Photo / Getty

In naming a virtually full-strength Blues team to play the Sunwolves in Tokyo on Saturday, Tana Umaga has made a statement that nothing but a good performance will be acceptable in his team's final match of the season.

There have been no cheap caps handed out for the match at the Prince Chichibu Memorial Stadium that effectively means nothing for either team. Of his senior players, only Jerome Kaino isn't starting, and Umaga has named the loose forward who started all three tests against the Lions on the reserves bench.

Lock Patrick Tuipulotu (ankle) and first-five Piers Francis (foot) have been sent home due to injury, a disappointing way for their seasons to end, with Tuipulotu not included in the squad to play the Lions after being late to training and Francis about to head back to his native England to play for Northampton.

Predictably, there are starts in their final matches at the franchise for prop Charlie Faumuina and No8 Steven Luatua. The Blues ought to be motivated enough to give their two stalwarts an appropriate send-off, but if there was any doubt then they have been left out, according to Umaga.

"It's [our] first time in Japan and we want to finish the season with a bit of a bang... the toughest thing for us, was not having played for four weeks and knowing we were coming here for a one-off game against a team that's been battling [and to make] sure we've been keeping our motivation levels up," he said.

"It was a good hit out [against Honda] last week to get the guys acclimatised to the heat and to see who was motivated. There were some guys who showed a lot of energy and that's what we want.

"We can't go into this game thinking it's just going to happen for us and think that playing on a wave of emotion is going to pull us through. In the end we still need to play hard for 80 minutes and some people are better at getting themselves up for these kinds of things than others. I wanted to see that and that's how we've gone.

The Blues will likely finish the season in ninth place, potentially their highest finish since 2011 when they were beaten in the semifinals by eventual champions the Reds. They will probably end up with more competition points than the Brumbies, who are guaranteed a home quarter-final, but Umaga has long reconciled himself to the competition's quirks.

"The way I look at it, you've got to be the fourth New Zealand team to have any chance of making the quarter-finals. That's all I measure ourselves on at this stage and we didn't do that."

Blues team to play Sunwolves on Saturday, kick-off 3.05pm is: Michael Collins, Matt Duffie, George Moala, TJ Faiane, Melani Nanai, Ihaia West, Augustine Pulu, Steven Luatua, Blake Gibson, Akira Ioane, Scott Scrafton, Gerard Cowley-Tuioti, Charlie Faumuina, James Parsons (c), Ofa Tu'ungafasi.

Reserves: Hame Faiva, Pauliasi Manu, Sione Mafileo, Josh Goodhue, Jerome Kaino, Sam Nock, Stephen Perofeta, Rene Ranger.