Blues Thread

[morepork]

Bouncy castles and foam swords are where it's at.

and women that can back a trailer.

[Spy]

They're certainly not glamorous, like I recall the 91FM cheerleaders being during Auckland's Shield era of the 1980s. In some ways that's quite nice, that they aren't selected for bimbo-effect, and the costumes aren't overly sexy or anything. There speaks a man with daughters, I suppose. Having said that, they don't dazzle with their technical expertise either.

Halftime entertainment at Blues games is uniformly terrible.

[morepork]

They're certainly not glamorous, like I recall the 91FM cheerleaders being during Auckland's Shield era of the 1980s. In some ways that's quite nice, that they aren't selected for bimbo-effect, and the costumes aren't overly sexy or anything. There speaks a man with daughters, I suppose. Having said that, they don't dazzle with their technical expertise either.

Halftime entertainment at Blues games is uniformly terrible.

Oh yes. Not restricted to the Bloos, of course.

I was at the 1985 shield game. In a Canterbury jersey. FTW.

[cashead]

Halftime entertainment is uniformly terrible.

[zer0]

TBF I did once see a somewhat rotund fellow slip on the wet stairs and lose most of his, outrageously expensive, pot of chips. I consider it to be the highlight of halftime entertainment.

[cashead]

Piers Francis has signed with Northampton, so that's that. He'll be a huge loss for the Blues.

Also, Duffy's earning his keep tonight.

[zer0]

Disappointed to see Francis go, but he is English, so good luck to him. But with him leaving, I'm hoping we'll see Stephen Perofeta get some decent game time at first-five over the season.

As for the match, I don't know what caused all the awful handing in the first half, but glad it was sorted in the second half. Might've helped that they also started running at space, instead of straight at the big slabs of Afrikaner meat. Set piece also needs a tidy up. There was also still some weird, and worrying, tactical choices going on.

[Spy]

It was a big night on the half-time entertainment front. It was the always eagerly-anticipated Potato Week, where Hira Bhana give away 10 tonnes of spuds near Gate A after the match. The lavish half-time spectacle involved 4 teams of 4 in a potato-themed relay. The first leg was hopping the width of the field in a potato sack, then a potato and spoon race, back across again doing something else with a potato, then the final sprint back carrying a 10kg sack of spuds FTW. Really breath-taking stuff. Taking it to the Superbowl next year, apparently.

And the Blues beat the Farce in a patchy performance, yielding a soft try in the end to give away the bonus point they thought they'd nailed down. The Ioane's and Matt Duffie were the standouts for me this week, but it was a battling win at home against a team that is struggling. But you know, we'll take it.

[zer0]

I too went to this cripple fight. Lane 4 should never have won that potato race. Lane 1 was clearly robbed. I also certainly didn't enjoy being audibly assaulted by DJ A-hole.

As for the Blues, it's certainly clear why some of the rotation players are not in the first XV. All the needless forced passes were absolute momentum killers. On the other hand, the Brothers Ioane were indeed good in defence and when they managed to get the ball is space.

[Spy]

Get any spuds? Seriously, this Blues season pass nearly pays for itself.

[zer0]

Nah. Considered it, given that we drove there, but by the time we filed out everyone was swarming round the spud truck like a bunch of sub-Saharan refugees.

It's the first Blues game I've been to for years, but are those sorts of big give-away's stock standard now or something? If the weather is decent I'll probably go to the 'Canes match, just to see the Barrett roadshow.

[Spy]

No, spud week is pretty much the big ticket round of the season.

[zer0]

So Ihaia West is out injured for the Highlanders match. However, in typical Blues fashion, Stephen Perofeta (our designated messiah for the year) is also out injured. So they've instead called up Gatland Jr.

Bryn Gatland could make his Super Rugby debut for the Blues this weekend after being called up as injury cover for Ihaia West.

West suffered an ankle injury after coming off the bench in the scrappy Blues win over the Force at Eden Park last Saturday, and could now be sidelined for at least a month.

With young Taranaki first five-eighth Stephen Perofeta also battling an ankle complaint, the Blues are likely to persist with Piers Francis at No 10 and include Gatland as cover on the bench for Friday night's clash with the Highlanders in Dunedin.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/supe ... kle-injury

It's a shame as I was looking forward to seeing Perofeta in action. He's supposed to be quite good.

[Lizard]

Has any Lions team played against a side including the son of the coach?

[zer0]

Why is Parsons still allowed to try and offload? Every time he's like an epileptic at a rave.

[zer0]

*Sigh* After dominating for the previous 39 minutes, the Blues scrum goes to sleep on half time and concedes a silly penalty to leave them leading by only 7 points, when it probably should've been closer to 17.

[Spy]

Second half was all Highlanders - Blues held scoreless. FT 26-20. Never mind Parsons attempted offloads, it's Moala that irks me the most. He just makes poor decisions too often.

[zer0]

Well, that's basically their season over. They'll probably win 90% of their international matches, but they psychologically crumble once a bit of pressure is applied.

EDIT:

Second half was all Highlanders - Blues held scoreless. FT 26-20. Never mind Parsons attempted offloads, it's Moala that irks me the most. He just makes poor decisions too often.

Just about all of them do, unfortunately.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Really odd game. Francis and SBW both awful but the Blues should still have won that game. It may be just me but I really felt that the referee was applying the breakdown laws to the Blues but not to the 'canes.

[Spy]

It was an entertaining game to attend, but I couldn't shake the feeling that yet again we'd be on the wrong side of a close one, and so it proved. Another should've. Luatua and Kaino were good for the Blues, SBW poor. Barrett was something though. A real treat to see him play like that.

[Spy]

Undefeated against international opposition.

Sent from my SM-G900FD using Tapatalk

[J Dory]

Anyone see the match? How did Ranger go?

[Lizard]

I listened to the radio commentary. Sounded like he had some good runs.

[zer0]

Watched the first half and had it on in the background for the second. Ranger had some good runs but couple of good tackles IIRC, but lacked the breakdown domination he showed before he left. TJ Faiane also had his best game for the Blues though still had a complete face palm moment when he threw a needless no-look offload that went forward with the try line begging. If he'd set a breakdown I'd imagine one of the forwards would've just gone straight through the middle to score.

[cashead]

Probably Ranger's best game this year, but then, it's the first proper run he's managed to have. He'll definitely need some time to regain his form, though.