Blues out to continue mid-season revival
Tana Umaga's side edged the Brumbies 18-12 Canberra in Round 10 before they survived a late Waratahs' fightback to win 40-33 in Sydney in Round 11.
After leading 26-0 at the break against the Waratahs, the Blues only managed to score a further two tries against Daryl Gibson's outfit.
"It would have been good if we had carried it on to the second half and we're obviously very happy with the result," Umaga told allblacks.com. "We haven't won here for a long time so it was something we're pretty proud of.
"We lost a bit of our structure and they came out and were determined to right some wrongs from the first half and we weren't able to slow their ball down or get the ball back – I don't think we had much ball in that second half.
"When we did we were fortunate to have a couple of pretty exciting kids [the Ioane brothers, Rieko and Akira] score some good tries and keep us that little bit ahead."
After a shaky start to their campaign, Umaga knows that his team is still in contention for the play-offs.
"Our ability to adapt to the conditions was really good [against the Waratahs]. [While the first] Forty minutes was good, we knew they were going to come back. We talked about it but we just went off the boil there," he said.
"We're still involved in this season so we want to keep improving and keep working hard.
"We just want to make sure we keep getting the results we work for and I thought we did work hard for that result but there are some things we can make teams pay. We want to be ruthless in that because there are successful sides that can do that. It's just a work in progress."
@AllBlacks
