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Match Highlights: Plummer agony as Blues draw with Bulls

Struggling five-eighth Harry Plummer missed a last-minute penalty attempt as the Blues were held to a nerve-jangling draw by an undermanned Bulls side at Eden Park on Friday.

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The result all but ends the Blues’ faint hopes of a spot in the top-eight play-offs with two rounds left after the weekend.

The Bulls, missing Duane Vermeulen and Handre Pollard, were dragged back into the game by five-eighth Manie Libbok who grabbed their third try with five minutes left and converted it to level the scores.

The Bulls, who are provisionally fifth overall kept their playoff hopes alive as they leapfrogged the Sharks into second place in the South African conference with 34 points, two points behind the leading Jaguares.

The Blues are fourth in the New Zealand conference, and 11th overall, on 28 points.

“We were our own undoing,” lamented Blues captain Patrick Tuipulotu.

“There was bad execution at times and that cost us.”

Bulls skipper Burger Odendaal was content with the two competition points given they could have lost at the death.

“We’re basically happy with a draw,” he said.

AAP

In other news: Tony Brown returns to Highlanders

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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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