Anthony Boric of the Blues is tackled during the game. Photo / Getty Images
There were a couple of tall tales told last night - one had a happy ending, the other not so.
Blues lock Ali Williams continued his return to top form, topping it off with a match-sealing try during his side's defeat of the Waratahs.
He was all smiles, something his
locking partner Anthony Boric would have struggled to muster after injuring his right foot in the 65th minute.
"It doesn't look good. That's lock number seven we've lost," said coach Pat Lam, referring to the attrition rate among his leapers this season.
"It doesn't look promising at all. They say to wait 48 hours, but already I'm preparing without him, which is a big loss for us."
Lam said the surgeon had told him the injury was similar to one that has kept Tony Woodcock out for most of the season.
Chris Lowrey, who usually plays at the back of the scrum, was an option to move into the second row, as he has done before, with Lam saying what the Blues would sacrifice in height they would make up for with Lowrey's mobility.
They have no such issues with the other lock. "We've just seen Ali grow throughout the competition," captain Keven Mealamu said of him. "He's been great to have around the team, someone of that experience."
For Waratahs captain Phil Waugh, it was a final Super rugby match and, by his standards, a flat farewell.
The flanker blamed his team's ousting on a lack of intelligent rugby.
"It was a disappointing night for us," he said. "You can't question the guys' commitment and character. We just didn't play smart football.
"We started well enough and we probably could have accumulated a few more points in the first half."
The Waratahs were not in the race in the second half and Waugh put that down to the way Blues five-eighths Stephen Brett and Luke McAlister controlled the game.
Every time the Waratahs threatened to put pressure on the home side, the pivots would turn them back around and send them scuttling back into their own half.
