As we get ready to play our first pre-season match against the Hurricanes on Saturday we’re really confident the boys are in good nick both physically and mentally.
There’s still that buzz and excitement around rugby which is gradually building towards the Super Rugby kick-off against the Crusaders on February 24 and the guys are certainly chomping at the bit to get out and play a game.
Despite most of our All Blacks not playing on Saturday, the entire squad headed up to Whangarei yesterday morning to spend some time with our fans and the community in Northland as well as meeting some of our sponsorship partners which was great.
A couple of the guys went to Whangarei hospital while others headed along to Placemakers (our new Community Sponsor) to man the barbeque and do some handywork, called in at the BNZ Branch as well as the local Barfoot and Thompson office.
After that the entire team descended on Cameron St Mall for a signing session and it was really great to see all the Blues fans turn out to get the players’ autographs and have a chat to them about the upcoming season, I hope they’re all there to cheer us on on Saturday afternoon.
We’ve also got a ‘Bluebeard Day’ today where a lot of the local schools will get to have plenty of fun doing drills and skills with the team so I’m looking forward to seeing them in action.
On the game on Saturday, we’ve got two teams going out - a first half team and a second half team, and it’s a really good opportunity for some of the newer faces to put their hands up for selection.
The Wider Training Group boys have been outstanding and I think the process we used which I spoke about in an earlier blog where they applied for positions has made a massive difference. They have been without a doubt the best Wider Training Group I’ve had as far as attitude and commitment go and those guys deserve a crack on Saturday.
They’ll all get the chance to play except for Francis Saili who’s injured and they’re really excited about it; they know they’re a part of the team rather than sitting on the outer and they’re eager to get a crack.
We’ve mixed the teams up so there’s a good balance of experienced guys and some newer guys. It’s a good chance to see those like hooker James Parsons get a start so it allows him to prepare for a big game and we can see how he reacts to that and the same goes for Wayne Ngaluafe who starts at halfback. We’ve changed a few things and made little tweaks and we’re really keen to see it work in a game. It looks good at training; we just want to see how it pans out in a game.
Going out and having the Dragon Boat race with Team New Zealand last week was excellent, it was great to do something a bit different against another high performance team. It was impressive looking around their facility and having breakfast with the guys and it was really nice to see the way the guys mingled and got an appreciation for the sport because it’s fair to say there are a lot of guys in the team that don’t go yachting!
There was a race-off - we had two dragon boats and they had one and they won the first two (apparently!) and we won the last one but I was on the boat at the finish line and what we noticed as we travelled along was that the start and finish line weren’t quite right and we were wondering why Team New Zealand were always hugging the inside buoy. When I spoke with Grant Dalton afterwards he said “sorry we smashed you guys,” and I said “oh yeah, there was a bit of cheating as far as the buoy goes and the start line and finish line worked in your favour.” But he replied “that’s strategy, not cheating, you’ve got to do what you have to do to win,” so that’s probably why they’re so good at what they do.
We also had R&B artist Lloyd come down to training to watch the guys on Wednesday and he was pretty impressed with what he saw. He came at a day when the boys were working very physically against each other. I don’t confess to knowing who Lloyd is but he’s a bit of a superstar with some of the guys here so it was nice for him to come along to training as well.
Graham Henry and the Mad Butcher were also down at training this week so we’ve had a lot of visitors this pre-season either sharing stuff or observing and it’s great to see there’s a real interest in what we do here at the Blues.
With his previous role as All Black coach Graham watches a lot of rugby and he’s able to pick up trends so him coming along for a catch up and to see what we’re doing and challenging the ideas we have is great. As such when he’s watching the Blues play he knows what we’re tying to do and he can give us some feedback from the outside looking in and also feed us the trends that he’s seen across the competition. Again, it’s just a continuation of what he did as All Blacks coach but he’s obviously got a lot more time on his hands and a lot less pressure so it’s good to see his smiling face around the place.
After the pre-season match we get back home on Saturday night, the boys have a day at home and on Monday we’re off to Whangaparoa for a camp with the Navy. We’ve got a few hard days up there and the focus will not only be on our training but also around team building. It’s the first real chance to get everyone together and just continue to build on the ‘Blues way’ and our culture. We get back on Thursday afternoon and we’re off first thing on Friday to Melbourne to take on the Rebels so I’ll update everyone on how the camp went next week.
In the meantime, if you’re in the Northland region please get down to Toll Stadium on Saturday to cheer on the guys, it should be a great game and you’ll get your first peak of how the Blues are shaping up in 2012.
Cheers,
Pat Lam
Blues Head Coach