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Leon MacDonald's selection ploy that inspired the Blues' last-gasp win over the Bulls in Pretoria

(Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

By Patrick McKendry, NZ Herald

Leon MacDonald has called his triple playmaker experiment a success as the Blues held their nerve in a deserved comeback victory against the Bulls in Pretoria.

They go to Cape Town for a match against the unbeaten Stormers next Sunday with confidence boosted after their 23-21 victory, a win helped to a large extent by first-five Otere Black, one of those playmakers under the spotlight. It was Black who kicked the winning points after the final siren, a high-pressure moment for a man on the comeback trail himself.

Before that moment of truth, assisting him in his task of creating the opportunities they couldn’t find against the Crusaders at Eden Park last weekend were second-five Harry Plummer and fullback Stephen Perofeta.

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The latter in particular was impressive in difficult, slippery conditions; he scored a crucial try in the second half which allowed the Blues to overtake the Bulls and silenced the Loftus Versfeld crowd and was as safe as an Auckland house price under the high ball.

The Bulls, taking advantage of a yellow card for No 8 Hoskins Sotutu for two dangerous tackles – harsh in MacDonald’s mind and those probably of most neutral observers – struck back with a converted try for Jeandre Rudolph with nine minutes remaining before Black’s late intervention.

It was little more than the visitors deserved given their three tries to two advantage. Wing Mark Telea showed good strength to dot down in the corner and flanker Tom Robinson showed similar attributes in driving over from close range.

“We competed well in a lot of areas,” MacDonald said. “Our set piece was a lot better.”

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It certainly was. The Blues’ lineout was significantly better; they won all 13 of theirs and nabbed a couple from the hosts and they probably didn’t get the rewards they deserved at scrum time.

One of the few negatives was a shoulder injury for hooker James Parsons suffered late in the match, one likely to keep him out of the Stormers match. “It looked pretty serious,” MacDonald said.

Another is another yellow card for Sotutu. “I felt a yellow card when you’re not making any contact with the head was pretty tough but it’s an area he has to get better at obviously because it’s his second yellow card,” he said.

Otherwise it was pretty rosy for the visitors. Even MacDonald’s decision to get right wing Matt Duffie on the field in the second half paid instant dividends with a brilliant catch of Black’s cross-kick and offload for Perofeta’s try.

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“I thought Stevie had a great game at fullback – he was very brave under the high ball and dangerous on attack,” MacDonald said. “He’s got a skillset that suits that position and obviously he’s a bloody good No 10 as well. Harry was busy at No 12 and a good foil for Otere. I thought it went well, I thought they all played well and TJ Faiane came off the bench and added some experience later which we were hoping for.

“At times we’ve lacked a little bit of composure and he (Black) brought that. He’s a good organiser and really accurate with his line kicks and goalkicking.

“It’s good for our confidence – we’ve been putting in some good effort on the training field but probably haven’t got the performances on the grass. We showed a lot of fight which we probably didn’t show last weekend. It was a good response from the team.

“They care about the jersey and team obviously and they showed that tonight. We’re really pleased with that. There are still areas of the game we have to get better at – we get that but if we play with heart like that every week you’re always a chance of getting a result.”

This article first appeared on nzherald.co.nz and was republished with permission.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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