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Blues make a Super Rugby statement in record win over Highlanders
By AAP
The highly rated Auckland-based Blues have produced a Super Rugby Pacific statement performance to start their 2023 campaign with a record 60-20 win at the home of the Dunedin-based Highlanders.
The powerful running of winger Mark Telea was a high point in a fast-paced match at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
But head coach Leon MacDonald, who recently was linked to the Scotland national team, will be concerned with the Blues' discipline.
They played the last 10 minutes of the first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half with 14 men after yellow cards and conceded too many penalties, especially near their line.
The Blues lost last year's Super Rugby final to the Crusaders 21-7.
"I don't want to bring up last year but we're probably playing with a bit of fire in the belly from the disappointment last year," Blues captain Dalton Papali'i said.
The Blues started strongly with tries to Telea, Beauden Barrett, Caleb Clark and Rieko Ioane to lead 31-6 after 28 minutes.
The Highlanders had a small resurgence before halftime and cut the lead to 31-20 at the break.
A try to Marcel Renata kick-started the Blues second-half scoring and with second tries to Ioane and Telea and another to Papali'i they walked away with the match.
- with AP
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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