And what is possibly a fair reflection of their stop-start Covid-affected Super Rugby Pacific season, still only three players old, the Blues believe they lost the match in which they performed best while the two won and where they fought the most.
Dalton Papalii reacted during the Blues’ narrow victory over the Chiefs at Eden Park. (Source: Getty)
That defeat to the Hurricanes at Dunedin last month, a bizarre 33-32 setback after conceding three attempts in the last nine minutes, including Ardie Savea’s converted scoring with seconds left, forced the Blues into an early season soul-searching as best they could. plays so well and then so badly in the space of a game.
“We’ve produced some of the best footy I’ve seen the Blues play for 75 minutes,” skipper Dalton Papalii told 1News this week. “It was a massive learning curve. I think we have a perception on ourselves that we are not a whole 80-minute team, so we are really working to change that.
And even though the lessons may not have been completely over yet – they were beaten by the Chiefs at Eden Park after almost giving the visitors a late victory and it took a full 40 minutes to get into the equipment for a more convincing victory over the Highlanders in Albany – the Blues hope to show a new found maturity in their return enthusiasm against the South in Dunedin on Saturday afternoon.
The Blues came into the new competition with title-winning pedigree after their triumph last year in Super Rugby Trans-Tasman competition but like the other New Zealand-based teams are badly affected by Covid.
Their first-round match against Moana Pasifika was postponed, as was the case last week against the Crusaders, with All Blacks first-five Beauden Barrett still feeling the effects of the virus.
Papalii, however, confirmed that the Blues have trained well together this week.
“We trusted the boys to do the work behind the scenes and it showed,” Papalii said. “We had excellent training today.
“The Canes game was probably the best game we played, but we lost it. The next two I think we played a relatively average foot, but we still won. We’re still growing.
“Penalties and a lack of discipline are our biggest thing. But the Canes game, yes, that really made us look at ourselves and make some adjustments.
Barrett’s return to the fold for this season after his Japan Sabbatical, plus Roger Tuivasa’s signing and the cancellation of a trophy drought have raised expectations on the Blues, but loose striker Papalii, who has impressive form showed, insisting that there was nothing to be ashamed of.
“I think we always had expectations on ourselves,” he said. “We are the city slickers up here, so we always have a goal on our backs. Everyone wants to beat us. We have a lot of talent, we just have to learn how to use it.
“Winning last year was massive for us. It was always a bit of a burden for us that we did not win a trophy for a while, but last year the boys went up and some of them had the best football of played her career.The culture on the field was also fantastic.But to be honest this was last year.We will take the momentum but this is a new year to work with new things.
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