Good signs for All Blacks-less Blues

A spirited performance by the Hurricanes wasn’t good enough to stop the Blues from running out 36-22 winners in the two team’s first pre-season match of the 2011 Investec Super Rugby season.

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While Jerome Kaino and Anthony Boric fronted up for the three-time champions, a host of All Blacks including Keven Mealamu, Tony Woodcock, Ali Williams, Piri Weepu, Ma’a Nonu and Isaia Toeava are still to suit up.

In contrast the only All Black the Hurricanes were missing was Conrad Smith.

Most encouraging was the early intensity of the Blues defence, a hallmark of the Pat Lam era, using what seems to be a mix between a rush defence coupled with a splattering of Pacific Island intensity that stopped the Hurricanes dead in their tracks on more than one occasion.

Also obvious was the Blues ability to switch tactically when required, showing forward power aplenty when Kaino barrelled over for his try, while the other five tries were a mix of patience and intuitive attacking enterprise.

Lam said to stuff.co.nz it was good to give wider members of the squad a run.

"We gave the wider training group a lot of game time. A couple more All Blacks will come in next week and we go into camp," Lam said.

"Now we've got a game under our belts, we can do a good review, do some work at our camp and get on a plane to head to Melbourne and build on that."

"One of the things is that it's been a long time since they've played rugby. The most important thing was that they can get out there and run calls, not all of them were perfect, but we've got two more games from here."