Breathing space for Blues

It's only five weeks into the Super 14 but the bye couldn't have come at a better time for the Blues.

With Luke McAlister, Isaia Toeava and George Pisi all having suffered injury woes and not being able to make a full contribution to the side, the situation was compounded during Saturday's game with the Crusaders in Christchurch where fullback Paul Williams, second five-eighths Benson Stanley and first five-eighths Stephen Brett all took knocks.

Brett would probably have struggled to make a game, along with Williams, had they been required to play this weekend. The Blues are scheduled to have their first game at Eden Park, against the Brumbies, on Friday, March 19.

While the Blues have a 50-50 record from their games so far, co-coach Shane Howarth had noticed a greater determination among the side this season.

Howarth said that talking to some of the Crusaders players after the game they were sore which reflected the physicality the Blues brought to the encounter.

"I suppose that's a tick for us because it showed that it was the battle that everyone expected it to be," he said.

The intercept try resulting from Rudi Wulf's pass had been a knocker, and then centre Robbie Fruean had done well to wrap up the win for the home team.

But Howarth said the pleasing thing was the Blues kept at it and halfback Alby Mathewson scored while hooker Tom McCartney had been unlucky not to have a try awarded.

"To put it in a bit of perspective to last year, those kind of games when we got behind in that area tended to go a bit further on than that," he said.

However, this time the team stuck at it and some of its best rugby in the game was played in the latter stages as it attempted to bite into the deficit.

There was a different mindset and while that was an improvement the side still came away with nothing to show for its effort.

"We'll have a really good look this week at what we can mend," Howarth said.

Developing experience was also a factor in that, as was the emergence of a 'driver', as Howarth put it, in Mathewson who he said was on top of his game.

He was happy with the rate of progress being achieved by Mathewson and Brett. They were getting to know each other and learning the lines the other ran and the cues from Mathewson to Brett to what to expect next.

"It's still a work in progress but it is better that we are being driven a lot more around the park," he said.

The pair have been told that it is their team. It was difficult for them to come in with a lot of guys who they have played a little with, and to then act the boss.

"The more time they spend here, the more important it is that they are around the boys and now the boys are seeing the rugby brains the two guys have got," he said.

Now the important thing was the clarity of their choices and the decisiveness they brought which had the ability to take the team with them.

Howarth said Mathewson's qualities were starting to emerge from the shy character he first met to a player who was coming out of his shell and revealing himself to be a typical halfback with plenty of cheek.

"The more his character comes out, the better for us," he said.

Mathewson was a player capable of making vital breaks around the ruck and greater exposure to his forward pack would allow him to exploit those chances.

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