{"id":481130,"date":"2026-02-15T07:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T07:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/481130\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T07:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T07:03:15","slug":"vern-cotter-reflects-on-blues-last-20-minute-slip-up-at-eden-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/481130\/","title":{"rendered":"Vern Cotter reflects on Blues\u2019 last-20-minute slip-up at Eden Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the start of the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific<\/a> competition, the Blues<\/a> lost five out of their first six games, including an opening round defeat at the hands of the Chiefs.<\/p>\n

That day, Blues head coach Vern Cotter felt like his team was nowhere near their best, but fast-forward to Saturday evening in round one of this year\u2019s competition, the 64-year-old was a lot more satisfied with their performance.<\/p>\n

It was a scrappy opening to the season, with both teams struggling for cohesion and fluidity in the first 25 minutes at Eden Park, before both sides attempted to swing the momentum towards their camp.<\/p>\n

The Blues were leading 12-5 after 54 minutes, and then 15-12 after 66, but couldn\u2019t hold onto victory as All Black halfback Cortez Ratima<\/a> ran in a 76th-minute try to secure the opening round win for the Chiefs.<\/p>\n

Cotter, who was announced as the new Queensland Reds<\/a> head coach for 2027 last week, told reporters in Auckland<\/a> post-match that the team felt like they had the chance to win that one.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, that\u2019s the general feeling from everybody, we got momentum back and we got them in the corner in that last 10 minutes, and then we weren\u2019t as good in the 22 converting to their field position into points as we could have been.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a real arm wrestle, which you\u2019d expect against the chiefs, but we just gave them that little moment, little bit of a wriggle room and a defensive error, and then they get in front.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m proud of the boys for a lot of work they did, and we came away with one point. We certainly would have liked to come away with more. But there\u2019s a sense of frustration, but also, I think, a real desire to get back on the paddock come Monday and put a few things right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the same end result as last season\u2019s first game, Cotter believes that this one feels different because of the performance and how there are just some minor details to fix up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was much different feeling coming out of the game last year, where we didn\u2019t get a point, we weren\u2019t good, we knew we were undercooked, whereas this time, I think was just a couple of details we can tidy up on,\u201d Cotter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be in it and more competitive moving forward, so it doesn\u2019t feel the same at all, there is frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although his team fell just short, the departing Blues head coach enjoyed the way the two teams played, rather than a kick first strategic plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what I liked about today\u2019s game was that both teams tried to play as well. It wasn\u2019t just boring rugby, wasn\u2019t just box kicking, catch, a mix of that was also initiative, quick taps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was play out wide so I thought it was quite a smart game of rugby, there were errors in it because you\u2019re asking a lot of the skillsets and the physicality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the start of the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific competition, the Blues lost five out of their first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-481130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}