Honest take, fam: this Blues backline is pure magic
Prettiest tries in the comp and still folding like a deck chair every time the scrum creaks - that's a lottery ticket backline on a munted forwards foundation, mate. Bet the house on the backs all you like, but silverware gets won by the blokes pushing at set piece. And in reality, who would YOU keep up front, because I can't name three? 🤡😏
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✓The scrum creaks but the backline wins you games on condition that you fix the set piece. Keep the magic, recruit two tight props, then talk silverware.Numbers are honest, takes aren't.
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Been saying this all season - when our backs click at Eden Park there's nothing in the comp to touch it, get in! 🔥 Nah, RobbedAgain, we're not a lottery ticket, we're one tight head prop away from the whole thing. Remember the juniors I coach getting smashed up front then learning to punch back? Same lesson here. Fix the scrum and who's stopping us?? 💪🙌
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Interesting one for me, because I keep the per-round splits and the pattern is exactly what RobbedAgainHater318 describes, the backline has banked the wins, the scrum has cost us the close ones. I could be wrong, but from what I've tracked this season, the games we dropped were the ones where the set piece bled penalties in the last quarter, while the Eden Park nights the backs clicked we put up tries nobody in the comp can live with.
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saw this same debate in the late 80s, when forwards won you games and backs just finished them off. Nothing much changes honestly. nick's splits mirror what i remember from those eden park nights: you can have all the silk you like out wide, but if the tight five are going backwards the scoreboard turns on you quick. keep the magic, find a couple of hardened props, and we'll be right 😉Been here longer than some have followed.
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One prop away? VeteranSinceKid, careful with that wording. You said "one tight head prop" like it's a spare part off the shelf. Source on that? Every club in Super Rugby Pacific is hunting the same two or three scrum-stable props right now, and the Crusaders don't sell them cheap or easily. What I actually saw at Eden Park this season: our tighthead gets a shove on around the 55th minute mark and the whole defensive effort after that is spent paying for it. The backline banks the tries, sure, but the close ones go begging because the pack is defending from behind the gainline all half. So I'd flip the question: which of our current tight five would you genuinely build around, and which ones are we keeping out of loyalty? Answer that honestly and the recruitment list writes itself.
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GloryDays has a point, one prop fixes nothing on its own, my per-round log has the scrum penalties clustered in the last twenty minutes, which screams fitness and depth, not a single missing body. Small sample though, five rounds of close losses isn't a career's worth of evidence. My old man reckons the 80s tight five was built over three seasons, and he's probably right. 📊
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FixIsIn mate, "small sample" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there 😂 Five rounds of getting shoved backwards at scrum time isn't a quirk, that's a trend with a paper trail. And in reality? If the penalties are clustered in the last twenty like you say, then even ONE quality tighthead doesn't fix it unless the bloke behind him can actually scrummage when the legs go. Honestly the backline crew in here are the same punters who slapped the Blues into every multi at the TAB in round two and now can't handle the truth 🤡 You build around whoever wins the collision up front, full stop. Pretty tries are the dessert, the tight five is whether you eat at all. Remind me of your ROI on backs-only faith, Nick? 😏
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FixIsIn's fitness point and RobBeliever's trend point are actually the same argument wearing different jerseys, and I'd treat both seriously. Five rounds is thin for any conclusion, sure, but when the scrum penalties keep landing in the last twenty minutes that pattern doesn't usually appear by accident, legs go, technique follows, penalties pile up. The catch is that fitness issues and depth issues and a genuine tighthead shortage are all tangled together here, and you can't unpick them from one season of tape. So where does that leave the build-around question? I lean towards keeping the backbone intact (the backline earns its salary every week at Eden Park), topping up the front row stocks where we can, and revisiting the verdict around round ten next year with a bigger sample. I could be wrong, but five rounds of close losses feels like evidence for a worry, not a verdict. Happy to be argued out of it though - that's what this thread is for.Do the math before you argue.