Super Rugby Aotearoa: what to expect from the Blues

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As the only Kiwi franchise not to have won Super Rugby outright in the last 8 seasons, the Blues will have been more disappointed than most when the 2020 iteration of the competition was halted after 7 rounds as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sitting with a 5-0-2 record at its premature conclusion, their average scoring margin of +8.3 points per game over their 7 fixtures would have comfortably been their best single-season mark since 2012; their highest figure over this 8-year period is the +2.7 points per game they achieved in 2017.

What to expect from Super Rugby Aotearoa

Sign up to The Tip-On, a free weekly newsletter – beginning on Thursday 18th June – containing analysis of professional rugby in New Zealand.

The sun rises in spite of everything. After weeks of deprivation and uncertainty, hope has appeared on the horizon – or, at least, to those European rugby fans willing to set their alarms early on coming weekend mornings.

Whether you’re a Super Rugby regular who has risen ritualistically for years to watch the likes of Larkham, Carter and du Preez or a casual fan of the sport, the advent of Super Rugby Aotearoa is a heady prospect. The ten-week double-round-robin competition featuring the five New Zealand franchises – the Blues, Chiefs, Crusaders, Highlanders and Hurricanes – kicks off next Saturday at 6:05am (UK time), with a number of interesting rule variations.

Super Rugby 2018: New Zealand Conference preview

The Super Rugby season kicks off for the New Zealand Conference tomorrow, as the Blues travel to Dunedin to take on the Highlanders. What are some of the questions that each franchise – and the All Blacks selectors – will be considering heading into their 2018 campaigns?

Super Rugby 2017 preview: Blues

The tangible impact of skills coaching

Identifying and accurately charting the effectiveness of a particular coach is one of the most difficult parts of the analysis of any sport. Too often correlation between the identity of a certain individual and results – either positive or negative – is interpreted as causation, belying the unique nature of every professional team and the complexity of factors which contribute to performance. The corollary of this is not that causation cannot be attributed in this way, but that it is important to be careful in the way we attribute it and to place reliance on on-field evidence when doing so.

One aspect of rugby where conventional wisdom and on-field evidence align is the belief that regular, top-class skills coaching can have a substantial impact on a team’s performance, and for the 2017 season the Blues have recruited one of the best in the business.