NSW Blues: Tahs' Super finals hopes buried at Eden Park
The NSW Waratahs' season of promise has ended in despair with an ugly, record-breaking 46-6 Super Rugby Pacific loss to the Blues in Auckland.
The Waratahs needed to defeat the defending champions for the first time at Eden Park in 16 years to keep their finals hopes alive.
Instead, Dan McKellar's depleted side copped a seven-tries-to-nil drubbing at New Zealand rugby's burial ground on Saturday.
For the opening half an hour, a famous victory looked possible - until the wheels fell off in a sorry, anticlimactic conclusion to what had been the Waratahs' best start to a Super campaign since 2009.
But a disastrous, coach-killing four-minute lapse before the interval ultimately cruelled the dreamy visitors before the Blues ran amok with four tries in a second-half clinic.
Despite being without injured stars Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Max Jorgensen, skipper Jake Gordon and flankers Rob Leota and Charlie Gamble, the Waratahs were right in the must-win game for both sides after rookie flyhalf Jack Bowen slotted a 34th-minute penalty goal to reduce the deficit to four points.
Playing with spirit, as they should with their season on the line, the Tahs had winger Andrew Kellaway and rookie scrumhalf Teddy Wilson to thank for desperate try-saving tackles to stay in the contest.
But a Bowen blunder, when he slipped and failed to find touch for a clearing kick, and a touch of magic from two-time world player of the player Beauden Barrett blew the game wide open for the Blues in a twinkling.
Two tries in three minutes to brilliant centre Rieko Ioane, the second after the halftime siren when Waratahs opposite Henry O'Donnell couldn't handle a probing kick from Barrett near halfway, suddenly extended the Blues' tenuous lead from 10-6 to 24-6.
There was no coming back for the Waratahs when fullback Corey Evans strolled over untouched shortly after the break to extend the Blues' lead to 31-6.
The Blues' sixth try, to hooker Ricky Riccitelli, was more than academic.
It virtually secured a precious bonus point to pile the pressure on Moana Pasifika to produce a similar victory later on Saturday against the Hurricanes in Wellington to deny Vern Cotter's side a place in the finals.
The hosts' seventh five-pointer was more significant to Ioane, who equalled All Blacks great Doug Howlett's Blues try-scoring record with 55 after beating three Waratahs defenders to another menacing Barrett kick.
The Blues' biggest-ever victory margin over the Waratahs did not look likely when Bowen's two first-half penalties almost wiped out Mark Tele'a's 11th-minute try and then Ioane's first strike off a deft AJ Lam grubber.
But an hour later and the Blues were anxiously awaiting their finals fate, needing the fourth-placed Hurricanes to deny Moana an unlikely bonus-point triumph away in the NZ capital to push the title-holders through to the play-offs.
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