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Blues make captaincy change ahead of 2020 Super Rugby campaign
By Online Editors
The Blues will head into the new Super Rugby season with just one captain at the helm of the squad after All Blacks lock Patrick Tuipulotu was named as skipper on Wednesday.
The 26-year-old was named outright captain of the 2020 squad after having previously shared the duty with loose forward Blake Gibson.
"It's my home town, home province," Tuipulotu said to media following the announcement of his appointment.
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"I'm pretty honoured and privileged to again lead this team, it's obviously different circumstances the time round, with myself solely.
"But in saying that, I've got a good group of guys behind me, who are going to help me out throughout the year."
One challenge that Tuipulotu faces as a leader in a younger, less experienced Blues squad compared to last year is that he won't be able to call on the support of departed veterans such as Ma'a Nonu, Sonny Bill Williams or ex-captain Augustine Pulu.
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"I was never going to say no if the coaches asked me," he added.
"Leon approached me and told me what was the go and I thought I was happy with that, it's a new challenge, it's different but I'll take it heads on.
"This is where I want to be and that's another driving factor in why I took it."
Tuipulotu will likely get his first match as the club's sole captain next Friday when the Blues host the Chiefs at Eden Park in the first match of the new Super Rugby season.
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Latest Comments
Turn it up. Give me your john A game would ya!
Go to commentsI didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.
What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.
Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.
There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..
and..
I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍
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