Blues on a mission to refind their identity as they eye late run at Super Rugby Pacific title

Friday, 29 May 2026

The Blues players gather in tight ahead of their Battle of the Bombays clash against the Chiefs in Hamilton.

ANALYSIS: Vern Cotter’s Blues have been going through an identity crisis in 2026 that has them running fourth in what shapes as a four-team Kiwi race for the Super Rugby Pacific championship title.

If they have any hope of adding to the title they won in 2024, and sending Cotter and a handful of club stalwarts out in style as they depart for fresher fields, they have to refind the identity that made them so tough to roll two seasons back, and that, truth be told, cost the Chiefs a long-overdue championship in ‘25.

When they’re at their best, these Blues under Cotter play an uncomplicated brand of rugby that is physical, direct and wears teams down with its brutality. In ‘24, and maybe at the back end of last year (when they famously upset the No 1-qualified Chiefs in the first round of post-season play, and cost them a home final), when you played the Blues you knew exactly what you were going to get. Stopping it was the hard part.

This year they’ve flashed that hard, uncompromising, route-one style in patches, and have racked up the wins when they’ve executed it well. But as the season has rolled along, bodies have come and gone, new faces have been blended in, they’ve drifted away from what they do best.

Their two most recent matches were prime examples of that. They were drilled 36-20 by the Crusaders in Christchurch and then played off the paddock, 47-24, by the Hurricanes at Eden Park in a pair of defeats that left them unable to live with the speed, width and creativity of their opponents.

By Cotter’s own assessment, post-training at their Alexandra Park HQ on Thursday, they are off the pace of the three leading Kiwi teams heading into finals footy. That would be the Hurricanes, Chiefs and fast-finishing Crusaders.

Malachi Wrampling and the Blues forwards will look to take charge up front against the Chiefs on Saturday.

“Everybody who watched that game was impressed,” said Cotter of the Crusaders’ 36-32 round 15 victory over the Chiefs in Christchurch. “It was one of the best games of footy the competition has produced for a while, and the Crusaders showed what they can do right at the end. Those three teams, the Chiefs, Hurricanes and Crusaders, are firing, and preparing well for the end of the season. We’ve got to lift our levels to get to them, and that’s the challenge for us.”

The Blues are not without hope, if they can tighten their game up, get back to that forward dominance and no-frills approach, and start hurting teams with their possession, power and precision. They can clinch a home first-round final with a win against the Chiefs at FMG Stadium Waikato on Saturday night and, in their favour, their hosts don’t have a heck of a lot to play for.

But if they get lured into playing with the pace and width of the Canes and Chiefs, they are unlikely to be able to live with their skill, subtlety and speed. The Crusaders play more of a mixture of the two, combining forward strength and set-piece mastery with attacking wizardry when it’s on, and appear to have their game humming nicely when it matters.

For the Blues it’s all about refinding the fear factor that made them such a tough out in 2024.

New skipper Anton Segner, playing his way into All Blacks calculations with a series of impressive displays, related an interesting story after Thursday’s training when he talked about finding that “finals mode”.

“It’s rolling up our sleeves and getting to work,” he said of the style required. “We obviously have a very distinctive way to play our footy. It’s no secret. We’ve got Bradley Slater here from the Chiefs and we asked him at the start of the year, how did you guys prepare to play us last year? He said, ‘we know where you guys are going to come – it’s straight up the middle, It’s just a matter of who wants to put their heads there’.

“We need to make sure we don’t disappoint the opposition teams by dialing back on our physicality and doing quite the opposite. In our opinion that’s what finals footy is all about: it comes down to who wants it more and who shows up on the day.”

Was it a brand the Blues played better than anyone else?

“I don’t think we’ve shown it in recent weeks but we’re definitely capable of doing it,” added Segner “We’ve got the athletes to do it and we’ve seen it in parts of the season. Now, going back to that finals footy mindset, it’s about consistency.”

As Slater has noted, the Chiefs know what’s coming. It just remains to be seen, on Saturday night and beyond, whether these Blues can find that beast mode again.