And, sure, the Blues must now trek down
State Highway 1 and attempt to knock off Clayton McMillan’s pace-setting Chiefs next week.
Finals footy is different, though. The regular season counts for little, other than home advantage and a potential second life.
While they’ll start underdogs in a one-off knockout match, the Blues are capable of squeezing and pressuring anyone on their day.
The Blues did what they had, and were expected, to do by recording their 11th straight win over the Waratahs and ending the Sydney side’s season with a 46-6 victory at Eden Park, with Rieko Ioane collecting a hat-trick to seemingly strike form at the right time of year.
Maybe it was the late afternoon sun. Maybe it was the chance to farewell valued servants Adrian Choat, Mark Tele’a, Harry Plummer and Ricky Riccitelli in their final home games before the quartet depart offshore at the end of this season.
Whatever stirred the Blues, they released their conservative shackles to blitz the Waratahs.
Four first-half tries – two each to Ioane and Tele’a, the latter in his return from a three-week suspension – propelled the Blues to a bonus-point victory that should be enough to book their ticket to week one of the finals.
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The Waratahs arrived in Auckland eyeing an upset to climb into the playoffs but they quickly discovered the chasm between sneaking past the Force in Perth last week and a Blues side who emerged from a bye, and a humbling loss to Moana Pasifika, and finally found their motivation.
While they turned the screws with their set-piece dominance and Riccitelli claimed a second-half try through the maul, the Blues were much more expansive than in any match this season.
You could go as far as to say, where has this form been all year? Seven tries to none was a statement of sorts. This was the Blues best performance of the year – and the Waratahs worst.
Patrick Tuipulotu, having committed his next three years to New Zealand rugby this week, led the charge up front with an inspirational shift for the Blues.
On the back of that platform, Beauden Barrett expertly pulled the strings to lay on two tries for Ioane and Tele’a off the boot.
Next week, should the Blues indeed progress to the playoffs, will be a completely different prospect against the Chiefs in Hamilton.
“The job is done from our perspective. We have to wait and see how the next game unfolds and from there if we get another Monday we’ll get excited about that and work on what we do next,” Blues coach Vern Cotter, speaking before the Hurricanes blow out win over Moana, said.
“It was a nice week because there was a bit of emotion around the players leaving. The theme was enjoy yourselves which means you give a bit more for your team-mates. We tried to work on a bit of that cohesion we missed against Moana.
“The team grew in confidence. Our defence picked up and came harder off the line we got turnovers from that and the variety with our kick game was nice to see.“
Asked about the prospect of facing the Chiefs next week, Cotter said: “We won’t get ahead of ourselves. We’d have to build off this performance. This was a knockout game for us so we’d take the same approach into the next one.”
Embracing a blend of their renewed attacking ambition – alongside their direct, confrontational, at times one-dimensional approach – would challenge any team in this competition.
No one, on the basis of one performance, could suggest the Blues are back. But after their treacherous road this year, they have cast themselves as nothing-to-lose underdogs.
That’s a dangerous place to be.
Blues 46 (Rieko Ioane 3, Mark Tele’a 2, Corey Evans, Ricky Riccitelli tries; Beauden Barrett 4 cons, Harry Plummer pen)
Waratahs 6 (Jack Bowen 2 pens)
HT: 22-6
Liam Napier is a Senior Sports Journalist and Rugby Correspondent for the New Zealand Herald. He is a co-host of the Rugby Direct podcast.