Blues v Chiefs

Kirwan

Who was the dickhead who said we are getting an out of form fossil back to the Chiefs???

His field kicking was comical at times. Not sure he’s going to last long either, so be careful....

African Monkey

@KiwiMurph There's no point having him there if he doesn't start. Ioane has to come into the gameday squad next week whether it's starting or off the bench just to bring some balance to our backrow options.

Niuia also has to start next week. Eklund was showing form from his days with the Auckland Mitre 10 Cup side.

macandcheese

@Machpants

Duffie is fine at #15

Blues halfbacks are fucking terrible Ruru is a headless chicken Perofeta is poor & can't kick to save his life
Plummer & Black are backups at best

Blues are awful - poorly coached, high error rate, mental erros Giving up 32 pts in the 2nd half is disfracful

BB won;t make a difference if he has a bum at scrum half
Good thing Landers have a Mitre 10 squad with A Smith & Iaone or else Blues would AGAIN be worst NZ team in SR

Hooroo

@Kirwan said in Blues v Chiefs:

@Hooroo said in Blues v Chiefs:

Who was the dickhead who said we are getting an out of form fossil back to the Chiefs???

His field kicking was comical at times. Not sure he’s going to last long either, so be careful....

It was me if you didn’t catch the sarcasm.

From the little I saw of the two halves, it just appeared more controlled in the second half. I could be wrong though as I flukely only really saw tries and build up to tries

kev

@macandcheese From all comments Nock and Plummer are fine they just need to select them.

Stag

Perofita

nzzp

Far out, that was as frustrating a game to go to as I can remember. We did enough in the first half to win by 20, but couldn't kick goals, keep pressure on or get the rub fo the green. Chiefs knew our weakness (mauls) and just exploited it over and over again.

Blues I thought looked a lot better. Some of the short passing is really tasty, just hanging a ball up in space for someone to run to. Should get better and better as the season goes on.
Scrum was a weapon we just weren't smart enough to capitalise on.

Ref was poor, missed a lot live, and seemed to miss a lot on replay too. We're not good enough to win tight games if we don't get a fair shake; same as last year.

Ruru was frustrating as all hell. Coughed up ball, made some poor choices on defence I thought, and was generally not great. Nock looked a lot better when he came on.

Lineout fell apart. Lost 3 in a row on our own throw in the first half - it's just letting people off the hook. Don't know why it was so bad.

Well played Chiefs, they won't win many if they can't fix the scrum, but well played to get over the top. Now yuo'll all have to excuse me as i go and drink a few beers and grizzle on the internets.

Crucial

Good old Blues killing another coaches career.
Doesn’t matter who the coach is, until they solve the 9/10 issue they will play their guts out and end up on the wrong end of the score.
I actually thought that they played pretty good with good shape and discipline but they freaked out once the comeback started

Kirwan

@Crucial said in Blues v Chiefs:

Good old Blues killing another coaches career.
Doesn’t matter who the coach is, until they solve the 9/10 issue they will play their guts out and end up on the wrong end of the score.
I actually thought that they played pretty good with good shape and discipline but they freaked out once the comeback started

Last two years have been light years ahead of where Tana dragged us down to. Nice try though.

nzzp

@Crucial said in Blues v Chiefs:

I actually thought that they played pretty good with good shape and discipline but they freaked out once the comeback started

Ya say that, but they got the score to go up 26-19 after being 19-all. They ddint' go into their shells, played some decent footy.

Forwards crashing it up and a decent scrum is something yo ucan build a team around. Backs went OK too, we just threw up a shit lineout and slack maul defence again. That and some brain farts and it's all over rover

Crucial

@Kirwan said in Blues v Chiefs:

@Crucial said in Blues v Chiefs:

Good old Blues killing another coaches career.
Doesn’t matter who the coach is, until they solve the 9/10 issue they will play their guts out and end up on the wrong end of the score.
I actually thought that they played pretty good with good shape and discipline but they freaked out once the comeback started

Last two years have been light years ahead of where Tana dragged us down to. Nice try though.

You Blues fans have blamed every coach since Ted and you know it.

Stargazer

Blues v Chiefs: a game of two halves

When the first game of the season is played on the last day of January, you can't blame anyone for expecting a slow start, with average rugby, lots of errors and little entertainment. So what a surprisingly entertaining game this was!

Because the turning point in the game can so easily be placed at half time, I've written down some thoughts about each half separately.

First half
The first half was clearly the Blues' half. They had a very dominant scrum and made some good steals from the Chiefs' line-out. The Chiefs struggled at setpiece.

The Chiefs' defence was good in the first half hour, however, and it took the Blues a while to cross the try-line. The Chiefs' attack didn't get them anywhere - partially because of a poor kicking game, partially because of bad ball handling - so the Blues' defence was hardly tested, at first.

Standing out in that first half was Hoskins Sotutu, with also Tony Lamborn having a good game (proving some doubters wrong).

Samisoni Taukei’aho, while a bit anonymous in the first 30 minutes, improved during the half and started to make an impression, culminating in the Chiefs' first try from a line-out drive.

Both halfbacks struggled, and it made me wonder how Te Toiroa Tahuriorangi ever made the All Blacks. He hardly showed to be able to play at Super Rugby level. The starting tens didn't fare much better, both making sloppy passes and kicking badly. Kaleb Trask making his debut, deserves a bit of patience though; he's just a puppy and has plenty of potential for improvement. Not so sure about Stephen Perofeta though.

Best backs on the field during that first half, for me, were Rieko Ioane and Mark Telea. None of the Chiefs' backs really stood out; if I had to pick one, it would probably be Solomon Alaimalo.

Second half
What an impact all those replacements in the Chiefs' squad made! ALB and Cruden coming on straight after the break, immediately influenced the game. The Chiefs' attack - virtually non-existent in the first 30 minutes and sporadic in the last 10 minutes of the first half - suddenly had some spark and passes started to stick.

The Blues' pack also lost most of its dominance and the Chiefs' line-out got much better. Taukei’aho was turning into one of the Chiefs' biggest threats. Weber coming on sped up the Chiefs' game even more and the Chiefs started to break the Blues' defence.

Sotuto was probably still the Blues' best in that second half and definitely deserved that Blues' 8 starting spot, but also Ofa Tu'ungafasi and Karl Tu’inukuafe had some good impact, with the latter scoring a good try.

But the best forward in that second half, was definitely Taukei’aho, closely followed by Lachlan Boshier. Best back for me was Solomon Alaimalo, although also Aaron Cruden with his clever drop goal and game management and ALB deserve a mention.

Overall, I think the Chiefs deserved their win, although I think the Blues were unlucky not to get a losing bonus point out of the game.

My MVP was Samisoni Taukei’aho.
Best forward: Samisoni Taukei’aho, with Hoskins Sotutu a good second
Best back: Solomon Alaimalo
Didn't live up to the hype (yet): Joe Marchant
Injury worries: Nepo Laulala, Angus Ta’avao, Ray Niuia
Annoying: Pita Gus Sowakula diving on players on the ground at least twice (not spotted)

I thought the officiating was good. Maybe the officials should have checked Aiden Ross' try for double movement?

Stargazer

By the way, I didn't read the thread before writing my comments on the game.

Kirwan

@Crucial said in Blues v Chiefs:

@Kirwan said in Blues v Chiefs:

@Crucial said in Blues v Chiefs:

Good old Blues killing another coaches career.
Doesn’t matter who the coach is, until they solve the 9/10 issue they will play their guts out and end up on the wrong end of the score.
I actually thought that they played pretty good with good shape and discipline but they freaked out once the comeback started

Last two years have been light years ahead of where Tana dragged us down to. Nice try though.

You Blues fans have blamed every coach since Ted and you know it.

I refer you to the stats thread from Duluth. Tana finished on what 6% against Kiwi teams?

He was in a category by himself of incompetence. Took ages to cycle out those shit Counties players he selected too.

KiwiMurph

@Stargazer pretty fair write up. Good work writing all that.

canefan

@nzzp said in Blues v Chiefs:

@Crucial said in Blues v Chiefs:

I actually thought that they played pretty good with good shape and discipline but they freaked out once the comeback started

Ya say that, but they got the score to go up 26-19 after being 19-all. They ddint' go into their shells, played some decent footy.

Forwards crashing it up and a decent scrum is something yo ucan build a team around. Backs went OK too, we just threw up a shit lineout and slack maul defence again. That and some brain farts and it's all over rover

Typical Blues. Always find a way to lose a game

Kirwan

@Stargazer said in Blues v Chiefs:

By the way, I didn't read the thread before writing my comments on the game.

Probably the biggest factor for both teams were injuries. Chiefs suffered in the first half, the Blues in the second.

According to Duluth who was the game we had some walking wounded out there for the last 15. And that backline was not ideal to end the game with!

nzzp

@canefan said in Blues v Chiefs:

@nzzp said in Blues v Chiefs:

@Crucial said in Blues v Chiefs:

I actually thought that they played pretty good with good shape and discipline but they freaked out once the comeback started

Ya say that, but they got the score to go up 26-19 after being 19-all. They ddint' go into their shells, played some decent footy.

Forwards crashing it up and a decent scrum is something yo ucan build a team around. Backs went OK too, we just threw up a shit lineout and slack maul defence again. That and some brain farts and it's all over rover

Typical Blues. Always find a way to lose a game

Yep. And failure breeds failure - opposition always think they can get up over us. As a fan, it's incredibly frustrating.

Hooroo

@Kirwan said in Blues v Chiefs:

@Stargazer said in Blues v Chiefs:

By the way, I didn't read the thread before writing my comments on the game.

Probably the biggest factor for both teams were injuries. Chiefs suffered in the first half, the Blues in the second.

According to Duluth who was the game we had some walking wounded out there for the last 15. And that backline was not ideal to end the game with!

Has there been any post match updates on any of the injuries? Was Sam Cane looked after and pulled at half time or playing Poke and got Yanked or was he injured??

Kirwan

@Hooroo said in Blues v Chiefs:

@Kirwan said in Blues v Chiefs:

@Stargazer said in Blues v Chiefs:

By the way, I didn't read the thread before writing my comments on the game.

Probably the biggest factor for both teams were injuries. Chiefs suffered in the first half, the Blues in the second.

According to Duluth who was the game we had some walking wounded out there for the last 15. And that backline was not ideal to end the game with!

Has there been any post match updates on any of the injuries? Was Sam Cane looked after and pulled at half time or playing Poke and got Yanked or was he injured??

AB rest directive? We lost Reiko early too I think because of that, he was on fire too

The Silver Fern

Blues v Chiefs

Blues v Chiefs: a game of two halves