Blues head coach Vern Cotter has accused his team of having a "soft" attitude following the defeat to the Reds in Brisbane which has dropped Super Rugby Pacific’s defending champions to ninth on the table.
After watching his side cross the line four times without scoring in the first half of their 35-21 defeat at Suncorp Stadium – his team’s seventh loss of the season – Cotter today pulled few punches in terms of where the blame lay.
It is, he said, a mindset issue – a stark admission at this level of the game and one unlikely to be disputed by the team's supporters.
The Blues, who have four matches remaining, can still make the top-six playoffs thanks to a relatively friendly run-in starting with the Force at Eden Park on Friday night. But Cotter's frustration, when talking to the media today, was plain to see.
"When you want to win a competition, it lives with you every day," he said. "You breathe it and the people around you can feel it and I just don’t think we have that same intensity.
"It’s important we remind ourselves that it’s a competition and it’s a competition you have to engage yourself fully to be competitive and we’ve just had a reminder of that this morning."
Accusing players of not wanting to win badly enough is about as serious as it gets for a head coach but Cotter, who last year led the Blues to their first championship in 21 years, is right to feel let down.
Last Friday night's loss to the Reds was the first time the Blues have lost to an Australian team across the Ditch in almost six years.
It comes after several near misses against the Brumbies, Chiefs and Crusaders this season but also underlined deficiencies that were not apparent last year as they swept to the title having lost only two matches in total.
Making the Blues' recent form more puzzling is that last year's breakthrough championship win was characterised by a ruthless and direct style that is conspicuous by its absence this season.
Against the Reds, the Blues were dealt a blow by losing wing Mark Tele’a to a deserved red card for a tip tackle in the first half. Tele’a will face the judiciary tonight and faces a ban of at least a couple of weeks. But they were again guilty of a lack of ruthlessness and poor decision making.
Ultimately, of course, being accused of not wanting it enough should hurt the Blues most of all, and Cotter couldn’t resist going to back to his theme when asked about the potential distraction of Tele’a’s impending departure to Japanese club rugby after the season finishes.
"I think it can be [a distraction]… if you don’t speak about it, it can be the elephant in the room. That’s life in rugby and pro sports. Finishing well is key and you only finish well if you’re fully engaged."
He added: "But while we’re all digging around thinking it’s all doom and gloom, we’ve still got four games to go. If we dig in and find that consistency we had last year we’ll surprise a few.
"We didn’t start well [against the Reds] and I knew they would start well – they had just come off the bye. There was a little bit of softness in our play in the first 20 minutes. We have to toughen our game up if we’re going to be competitive."
Adding to his side’s difficulties are injuries to wing Caleb Clarke, loose forward Dalton Papali’i and midfielder AJ Lam.
"There is a little bit of uncertainty there around team selection but not around attitude. I think the attitude is pretty clear in terms of what we need to take to the game," he said.
Two tries from first-five Tom Lynagh within the first seven minutes had the Blues in trouble from the start. They eventually replied via hooker Kurt Eklund before halftime butthey let too many opportunities slip.
One piece of bad luck occurred at the end when replacement back Corey Evans were tackled early in the process of scoring a try that could have given the Blues a losing bonus point.
Unfortunately for the Blues, it was not ruled as such by referee Jordan Way.
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