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Blues bash Brumbies in record-setting Super Rugby rout

Darcy Swain of the Brumbies looks on during the round nine Super Rugby Pacific match between Blues and ACT Brumbies at Eden Park, on April 20, 2024, in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

The ACT Brumbies have confessed to copping a brutal beat-down after receiving a reality check with a record-breaking 46-7 Super Rugby Pacific loss to the Blues in Auckland.

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Australia’s benchmark side entered Saturday’s contest with a six-from-seven record this campaign and designs on an all-important top-two finish.

That may yet materialise.

But, for now, Eden Park once again proved Australian rugby’s graveyard as the Blues put the Brumbies to the sword on Saturday with seven tries to one late consolation cross from the vanquished visitors.

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“We just got physically dominated the whole game, really,” said Brumbies captain Ryan Lonergan.

“We had no go forward in attack and we couldn’t seem to slow their ball down at all, or their momentum in defence.

“We had a few opportunities there, I saw that first 20 minutes in the ‘A’ zone and we couldn’t convert that into points and then, yeah, it was all downhill from there.”

Coach Stephen Larkham had hoped the Brumbies’ acid test across the Tasman would send a statement to their rivals.

Instead, the Brumbies suffered their heaviest ever defeat to the Aucklanders in a thorough mismatch between the two sides previously sitting in joint second place.  

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A rout certainly didn’t look on the cards early on.

It was almost impossible to believe the Brumbies found themselves down after Blues halfback Taufa Funaki was yellow-carded for being offside while pulling off a try-saving tackle on Ollie Sapsford.

Fixture
Super Rugby Pacific
Blues
46 - 7
Full-time
Brumbies
All Stats and Data

But a try to big No.8 Hoskins Sotutu, following a bust from flanker Dalton Papali’i, when the Blues were down to 14 men put the hosts up 7-0 against the run of play.

The try proved the turning point of the match.

Starving the Brumbies of possession, the Blues converted their clear dominance into a double-digit lead when destructive winger Caleb Clarke stormed over to bag the Blues’ second try seven minutes from halftime.

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Their third, after the halftime siren following a brain explosion from Brumbies five-eighth Noah Lolesio, was a gut-buster for the visitors.

After the Brumbies defended their line valiantly, Lolesio inexplicably kicked the ball out on the full, believing that would be halftime.

Instead, the blunder earned the Blues a free kick, with Sotutu punishing the error with his second five-pointer to earn his team a 24-0 lead at the break and himself top tryscorer bragging rights in the competition.

Any hopes of a miraculous second-half comeback were snuffed out shortly after the restart, when Papali’i scored off a driving maul before veteran Brumbies prop James Slipper was sin-binned for a dangerous tackle.

Further tries to front-rowers Ricky Riccitelli and Funaki added to the  Brumbies’ woes as their Eden Park hoodoo extended to 11 years.

It doesn’t get any easier next week when the Brumbies host the undefeated table-topping Hurricanes in Canberra.

“We had a similar sort of feeling after the Chiefs (loss) earlier in the season, so it’s disappointing to roll out a similar performance,” Lonergan said.

“Obviously quality teams and we’ve got to want to play these games, so we’ve got a big week of review and then move on nice and fast and get ready for the Canes.” 

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J
JW 20 minutes ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

Like I've said before about your idea (actually it might have been something to do with mine, I can't remember), I like that teams will a small sustainable league focus can gain the reward of more consistent CC involvement. I'd really like the most consistent option available.


Thing is, I think rugby can do better than footballs version. I think for instance I wanted everyone in it to think they can win it, where you're talking about the worst teams not giving up because they are so far off the pace we get really bad scoreline when that and giving up to concentrate on the league is happening together.


So I really like that you could have a way to remedy that, but personally I would want my model to not need that crutch. Some of this is the same problem that football has. I really like the landscape in both the URC and Prem, but Ireland with Leinster specifically, and France, are a problem IMO. In football this has turned CL pool stages in to simply cash cow fixtures for the also ran countries teams who just want to have a Real Madrid or ManC to lose to in their pool for that bumper revenue hit. It's always been a comp that had suffered for real interest until the knockouts as well (they might have changed it in recent years?).


You've got some great principles but I'm not sure it's going to deliver on that hard hitting impact right from the start without the best teams playing in it. I think you might need to think about the most minimal requirement/way/performance, a team needs to execute to stay in the Champions Cup as I was having some thougt about that earlier and had some theory I can't remember. First they could get entry by being a losing quarter finalist in the challenge, then putting all their eggs in the Champions pool play bucket in order to never finish last in their pool, all the while showing the same indifference to their league some show to EPCR rugby now, just to remain in champions. You extrapolate that out and is there ever likely to be more change to the champions cup that the bottom four sides rotate out each year for the 4 challenge teams? Are the leagues ever likely to have the sort of 'flux' required to see some variation? Even a good one like Englands.


I'd love to have a table at hand were you can see all the outcomes, and know how likely any of your top 12 teams are going break into Champions rubyg on th back it it are?

120 Go to comments
f
fl 3 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

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