The Blues are in bullish mood as they seek to end the Crusaders’ ominous home playoff record in the Super Rugby Pacific semi-finals on Friday.
The Blues, defending champions, were surprise 20-19 winners in their elimination match against the top-seeded Chiefs last week thanks to All Blacks veteran Beauden Barrett’s late conversion.
It set up a semi-final against the Crusaders in Christchurch, where the 14-time tournament winners have won 30 play-off matches and never lost.
“All I’m saying is, nothing lasts forever,” said Blues coach Vern Cotter when confronted with those numbers after the Chiefs game.
Cotter, the former Scotland and Fiji head coach and forwards coach of the Crusaders when they won titles in 2005 and 2006, continued his fighting talk this week.
“They’re going to lose one day. When I was at Clermont we won 77 (home) games in a row and, in the end, the pressure was heavy,” he said. “One day we knew it was going to happen. They’re on 30 and one day it’s going to happen. Will it be this week? I don’t know, but the boys will be up to push it as best they can.”
The Crusaders are gunning for an eighth title in nine years after a poor 2024 season which saw them miss the playoffs entirely in coach Rob Penney’s first year in charge.
They go into Friday’s clash without All Blacks prop Tamaiti Williams after he succumbed to a knee injury in the dominant 32-12 win over the Reds in their qualifying final. Fellow All Black George Bower comes into the starting side.
Meanwhile, the Chiefs are aiming to bounce back from their loss to the Blues when they host the Brumbies on Saturday in Hamilton. Their lifeline came courtesy of Super Rugby’s quarter-finals format, where the three qualifying final winners, and the top-ranked loser, go through to the last four.
“We’ve got to be grateful that we’re here and make sure we nail that opportunity now that we’ve been given this extra week,” said Chiefs lock Naitoa Ah Kuoi.
Coach Stephen Larkham said the Brumbies are up to the challenge of facing the Chiefs, after they ended the Hurricanes’ season in a high-scoring 35-28 win in Canberra.
“The boys can get a lot of confidence out of the way that we’re playing,” Larkham said. “There’s a lot of stats that show that we’re playing very good footy and we’ve also shown consistency throughout the season.”
© Agence France-Presse
Photo: Phil Walter/Getty Images
