Why? They looked pretty ordinary in the second half, in the face of what was essentially one-out crash ball.
Mostly breaks being made relatively easily before being squandered by (compounding) small mistakes. Pulu's not-quite-third try, for instance. Or the break down the left wing in the second half that was moving out to the overlapped right wing breaking down off a low pass to Plummer which resulted in an even lower pass to Nonu, who couldn't reel it in. If those passes stick, then it's almost a guaranteed a Blues try.
Also an apparent reluctance to use Crusaders mode -- which yielded their first try of the second half in brisk fashion -- more than once every few weeks. I dare say if the Crusaders scored that quickly/easily, then Whitelock would spam those plays until the game was properly out of reach or the Red's managed to contain it. On the other hand, the Blues use it once, say '
huh, that's neat' when it works, then never bother going back to it again. Though, admittedly, it is off a lineout, so does rely on Stormtrooper Parons being able to hit his targets. Which is, of course, a flip-of-the-coin situation at best.
Then there were matters that were, how should I say, beyond their control. But it was the penultimate match for two teams, that had no impact on the postseason picture, so who cares.