Blues 2026

@Steven-Harris said in Auckland Rugby 2026:

@nzzp Rico Simpson didn’t play last weekend but played against our Waitemata team around 3 weeks ago chatted to Rico post game it was his first game in several weeks he had been out injured didn’t realise how bloody tall he his
Shared an interesting story about one of the games , Stern Vern apparently lost his shit with a massive halftime spray and the players didn’t want him in the jersey room post match .Wow channelling Sir John Kirwin

Well well well… I tried to say it was bad behind closed doors and got shredded for it. The truth always comes out eventually. ‘Toxic’ is the word that was used to describe it to me.

@Landers92 Compare 2024 to 2026 and you are well down on experienced and physically capable players. Flogging a dead horse?

Should probably move this discussion to the Blues thread.

@KiwiMurph Looks quick. I would like to see him at 15 next year with Clarke and Lancaster on the wings. Zarn to bench or trialled at 12.

@Tim said in Blues 2026:

@Landers92 Compare 2024 to 2026 and you are well down on experienced and physically capable players. Flogging a dead horse?

Should probably move this discussion to the Blues thread.

What's interesting is that the Blues looked a bit disinterested at times this year - I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I can imagine a coach losing their shit with them.

My question is did he lose them before choosing the Reds or after? Honestly speaking, I'd be well pissed if my coach signed somewhere else in the same competition with a team who are qualitatively worse than us. That says something.

@gt12 This is where sports fans get into Kremlinology. Can't blame us though ...

@Tim said in Blues 2026:

@gt12 This is where sports fans get into Kremlinology. Can't blame us though ...

That's the perfect word to describe it, but some of these guys might have enough sauce to push it one way or another.

My position is that if he were let go and chose the Reds, great, but leaving for the Reds is not cool. So, given that he was announced basically before the season started, I put this on him.

People with sources, please refute as necessary, I'm just here to start shit discussion.

@gt12 said in Blues 2026:

My position is that if he were let go and chose the Reds, great, but leaving for the Reds is not cool. So, given that he was announced basically before the season started, I put this on him.

his contract was up though, wasn't it. So it's a natural break point - if the Blues org really wanted him they would have pushed for an extension. I presume therefore it was a mutual parting of ways

He had signed for two years and said that was enough time (maybe aware his methods have a time limit?)

Blues asked him to do one more season (there was an article saying they weren't happy with the coaching options on the market at the time). Both parties knew VC was looking for a job and the Blues were looking for a replacement going into the season

The Blues form slump this year coincided with Papali'i's injury.

@Landers92 said in Blues 2026:

@Steven-Harris said in Auckland Rugby 2026:

@nzzp Rico Simpson didn’t play last weekend but played against our Waitemata team around 3 weeks ago chatted to Rico post game it was his first game in several weeks he had been out injured didn’t realise how bloody tall he his
Shared an interesting story about one of the games , Stern Vern apparently lost his shit with a massive halftime spray and the players didn’t want him in the jersey room post match .Wow channelling Sir John Kirwin

Well well well… I tried to say it was bad behind closed doors and got shredded for it. The truth always comes out eventually. ‘Toxic’ is the word that was used to describe it to me.

Whether or not Cotter has some issues with some senior players, you pitched the idea that the Blues weren't playing as well due to Cotter being toxic. This is a simplistic idea that doesn't consider the wider facts.

A bunch of key players have moved on/signed to make money overseas. These are all players who were fringe All Blacks and key Blues players. They were in their late 20's and had fallen out of favour with the then All Blacks set up. Its a natural progression to head overseas at that stage to make as much money as you can while you still have a few years left. This is happening across all Super teams for players of that age. So you can't put player loss down to Cotter.

The players who have so far replaced the Blues players have not been as good ( yet ). Some of the players are very young and still developing. So that is one reason for the teams performance challenges.

The other is losing our best player Dalton Papali'i. We were winning a high percentage of games while he was playing this year but lost every game since his injury. The Blues defence fell apart without him there.

Beauden Barrett has been inconsistent for his entire career at the Blues during the 20's. While I respect his service to NZ Rugby in general I personally don't think his involvement with the Blues has been helpful.

Overall the Blues did much better than I expected this year.

@brodean said in Blues 2026:

@Landers92 said in Blues 2026:

@Steven-Harris said in Auckland Rugby 2026:

@nzzp Rico Simpson didn’t play last weekend but played against our Waitemata team around 3 weeks ago chatted to Rico post game it was his first game in several weeks he had been out injured didn’t realise how bloody tall he his
Shared an interesting story about one of the games , Stern Vern apparently lost his shit with a massive halftime spray and the players didn’t want him in the jersey room post match .Wow channelling Sir John Kirwin

Well well well… I tried to say it was bad behind closed doors and got shredded for it. The truth always comes out eventually. ‘Toxic’ is the word that was used to describe it to me.

Whether or not Cotter has some issues with some senior players, you pitched the idea that the Blues weren't playing as well due to Cotter being toxic. This is a simplistic idea that doesn't consider the wider facts.

A bunch of key players have moved on/signed to make money overseas. These are all players who were fringe All Blacks and key Blues players. They were in their late 20's and had fallen out of favour with the then All Blacks set up. Its a natural progression to head overseas at that stage to make as much money as you can while you still have a few years left. This is happening across all Super teams for players of that age. So you can't put player loss down to Cotter.

The players who have so far replaced the Blues players have not been as good ( yet ). Some of the players are very young and still developing. So that is one reason for the teams performance challenges.

The other is losing our best player Dalton Papali'i. We were winning a high percentage of games while he was playing this year but lost every game since his injury. The Blues defence fell apart without him there.

Beauden Barrett has been inconsistent for his entire career at the Blues during the 20's. While I respect his service to NZ Rugby in general I personally don't think his involvement with the Blues has been helpful.

Overall the Blues did much better than I expected this year.

I had the impression Blues were impacted most when Perofeta was running the cutter instead of BB. Thought Dalton was there when they lost to Chiefs Brumbies and Crusaders.

@ARHS said in Blues 2026:

@brodean said in Blues 2026:

@Landers92 said in Blues 2026:

@Steven-Harris said in Auckland Rugby 2026:

@nzzp Rico Simpson didn’t play last weekend but played against our Waitemata team around 3 weeks ago chatted to Rico post game it was his first game in several weeks he had been out injured didn’t realise how bloody tall he his
Shared an interesting story about one of the games , Stern Vern apparently lost his shit with a massive halftime spray and the players didn’t want him in the jersey room post match .Wow channelling Sir John Kirwin

Well well well… I tried to say it was bad behind closed doors and got shredded for it. The truth always comes out eventually. ‘Toxic’ is the word that was used to describe it to me.

Whether or not Cotter has some issues with some senior players, you pitched the idea that the Blues weren't playing as well due to Cotter being toxic. This is a simplistic idea that doesn't consider the wider facts.

A bunch of key players have moved on/signed to make money overseas. These are all players who were fringe All Blacks and key Blues players. They were in their late 20's and had fallen out of favour with the then All Blacks set up. Its a natural progression to head overseas at that stage to make as much money as you can while you still have a few years left. This is happening across all Super teams for players of that age. So you can't put player loss down to Cotter.

The players who have so far replaced the Blues players have not been as good ( yet ). Some of the players are very young and still developing. So that is one reason for the teams performance challenges.

The other is losing our best player Dalton Papali'i. We were winning a high percentage of games while he was playing this year but lost every game since his injury. The Blues defence fell apart without him there.

Beauden Barrett has been inconsistent for his entire career at the Blues during the 20's. While I respect his service to NZ Rugby in general I personally don't think his involvement with the Blues has been helpful.

Overall the Blues did much better than I expected this year.

I had the impression Blues were impacted most when Perofeta was running the cutter instead of BB. Thought Dalton was there when they lost to Chiefs Brumbies and Crusaders.

We lost Dalton in the first 5 minutes in the 2nd Crusaders game after beating them previously in the season.

There was a dodgy 'try' awarded by BoK in the first Chiefs game . Brumbies game we lost by a few like the Chiefs game.

We won all the other games Dalton played. The key is those previous losses were a few points. We had the 2nd best defense in the comp. After Dalton was injured we were getting massive scores run up against us.

@brodean I never said player loss was down to Cotter?

Anyway, my point still stands. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to.

@Landers92 said in Blues 2026:

@brodean I never said player loss was down to Cotter?

Anyway, my point still stands. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to.

Your point is irrelevant. It's just a bit of bitchy gossip for a team you don't support.

@brodean said in Blues 2026:

@Landers92 said in Blues 2026:

@brodean I never said player loss was down to Cotter?

Anyway, my point still stands. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to.

Your point is irrelevant. It's just a bit of bitchy gossip for a team you don't support.

It's inside oil that as a Blues supporter I find valuable.

All things can be true

• Dalton was a huge loss, especially defensively
• Blues were an average team this year (not unexpected)
• Cotter lost the dressing room

Some interesting stats for the Blues loosies:

Tackles Per 80
18.8 Dalton Papali'i
17.19 Torian Barnes
14.5 Malachi Wrampling Alec
13.82 Che Clark
11.64 Hoskins Sotutu
11.48 Anton Segner

Rucks Attended
26.3 (20.4 + 5.9 ) Dalton Papali'i
24.6 (20.1 + 4.5 ) Torian Barnes
24.5 (18.8 + 5.7 ) Hoskins Sotutu
21.5 ( 16 + 6.5 ) Anton Segner
17.7 (11.7 + 6 ) Malachi Wrampling Alec

@brodean said in Blues 2026:

@Landers92 said in Blues 2026:

@brodean I never said player loss was down to Cotter?

Anyway, my point still stands. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to.

Your point is irrelevant. It's just a bit of bitchy gossip for a team you don't support.

Lol. ‘Bitchy gossip’. I guess hearing it from a player counts for nothing. As you were…

@brodean said in Blues 2026:

@Landers92 said in Blues 2026:

@brodean I never said player loss was down to Cotter?

Anyway, my point still stands. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to.

Your point is irrelevant. It's just a bit of bitchy gossip for a team you don't support.

I highly doubt it's gossip, @landers92 has a pretty reliable source that would suggest otherwise.

@KiwiMurph said in Blues 2026:

@brodean said in Blues 2026:

@Landers92 said in Blues 2026:

@brodean I never said player loss was down to Cotter?

Anyway, my point still stands. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to.

Your point is irrelevant. It's just a bit of bitchy gossip for a team you don't support.

It's inside oil that as a Blues supporter I find valuable.

All things can be true

• Dalton was a huge loss, especially defensively
• Blues were an average team this year (not unexpected)
• Cotter lost the dressing room

For me whether or not Cotter lost the dressing room is irrelevant.

1. He was always moving on anyway
2. We made it to the semi's and didn't have the players available to progress further than that.
3. A bunch of out of favour former All Blacks or fringe All Black players in their late 20's moved overseas - as they did in other clubs.

We actually played well in the semi against the Canes.

At half time we were within a few points but we had lost AJ Lam and Caleb Clarke who were our two main attacking weapons. Christie came off at halftime. Soon after halftime Segner was also gone and BB started turning up at first receiver, Barnes went too and attack and defense crumbled with the bench.

I don't see what @landers92 has done wrong here. He's reported that there was tension behind the scenes which was also confirmed by @steven-harris and it seemed evident when Stern Vern started getting prickly with the media, notably James Parsons who happened to ask no more than a harmless question after the Hurricanes home fixture.

Yes, Papali'i will always be a loss to any Blues side, but regularly conceding 50+ points nearly every game in the last 5 suggests, that Cotter had lost the dressing room, and even leading up to our slump, we'd been making very hard work of nearly all our wins.

At the same time, he has left us in an alright space where we have a decent crop of youngsters to take us forward. We're in a rebuild, yes, but I think we'll be back pushing hard at the top in the next few seasons.