All Blacks lock and Blues captain Patrick Tuipulotu admitted to being frustrated after his side suffered a defeat to the Chiefs in their Super Rugby Pacific clash in Auckland on Saturday.
Although they dominated the early exchanges and held a 14-6 lead at half-time, the Blues lost their way after the interval as the Chiefs took control of proceedings and outscored their hosts 19-0 in the second half to clinch a deserved 25-14 victory.
The match was a repeat of last year’s Super Rugby Pacific final and Tuipulotu identified the physical battle as a key aspect where the Blues came off second best to their opponents and this was particularly galling after they spoke about dominating that department in the build up to the highly anticipated encounter.
‘Probably just paid lip service to it’
“During the week, we talked about the physicality of the game but I think in the end probably just paid lip service to it and it wasn’t really that genuine,” he said after the clash.
“The Chiefs, they played the physical game tonight and we didn’t really fire back.
“We probably talked about doing something but expected it to happen.”
The Chiefs came out firing after half-time and dominated the forward exchanges – especially the scrums – while the Blues’ discipline let them down as they conceded a whopping 16 penalties to their opponents’ six.
Despite going into the sheds with their eight-point lead at half-time, Blues head coach Vern Cotter was far from happy with his side’s performance.
“I don’t know that we were fully in control from the start,” he said.
“If you look at the game eight months ago and you look at this game, were the Chiefs much better or were they that much worse? Those are the thoughts of things we’ll look at.
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“Every team needs to go through these types of emotions and feelings after games.
“It’s never going to be all one way and I think for this team to learn and get mature again – this is something they haven’t experienced and the last time was 21 years ago, so coming back in as favourites, perhaps we need to ask some questions and just create awareness around where we’re at at the moment.
“That’s really key to moving forward. There are parts of the game I think we can make better decisions in, but were we in comfortable positions to make better decisions?
Chiefs ‘brought a physical edge’
“I expected it to be a little bit to-and-fro, but if you look at the Chiefs play, they locked in, brought a physical edge and it was hard for us to lock in.”
Despite their shortcomings, the Blues held a 14-11 lead until the 67th minute before Chiefs debutant Leroy Carter crossed for a try.
Shortly before that, the home side had a chance to extend their lead but Chiefs scrum-half Cortez Ratima prevented Blues flyer Mark Tele’a from scoring a try with a superb cover tackle.
The Chiefs had already started to dominate by then and although Cotter admitted that a try for the Blues at that stage could have seen a momentum shift back in their favour, he feels his side did not adapt to how things were going.
“We got ourselves comfortable around dominating scoring, and I think sometimes you just need to learn to adapt,” he added.
“Sometimes it’s going to be tough and you’re going to have to find a way and it may be a different way than you started off with.”
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