Tuned in a little late, so I missed the Brumb's best spell. But from the 25 mins or so I watched, the Blues are not going to lose the Brumbs. The game is over.
I'm interested in seeing the performance of some players:
1. Excellent half from Robinson; especially pleasing is his work at lineout. He might be making a push for the ABs.
2. Excellent half also from Mark Telea. He is always a handful on attack; it's the rest of the game that is sometimes ponderous. But he was urgent and committed so far. Made a nuisance of himself in a ocuple of rucks - excellent, and good defence. Good commitment on the Valetini hit; he still missed, but his intervention killed that attack.
3. In games like this where the play doesn't run his way, I like Akira Ioane doing the subtle work - i.e. hitting the rucks with some urgency. The ABs need to get their balance right. We love loosies on the tramlines, but there are too many loosies and the odd hooker just standing there doing nothing too often.
4. Very average from Finlay Christie. I can't see how he is an AB. For the 90% of work he is ok. He is busy but his pass is not always accurate, and his kicking is average. For the 10% of really difficult tasks, Finlay always makes the wrong decision or the wrong execution. He's not good enough for mine. I do not rate him among the top 5 scrummies in NZ (much less top 3).
The Brumbs have a good restart, and the Blues got lucky they didn't concede more possession becuase their restart alignment is slow.
The Brumbs also, obviously, have a great maul. So discipline from the Blues are critical.
What a difference the Blues have this year at lock. There's a lot of workhorses now, and that's the difference. The Blues always had talent, but lacked hard work, calm, strategy and cognition. They filled in the first 2 with the likes of Tucker, Darry, Romano - all grafters.