Blues and All Blacks first-five Beauden Barrett says they "underestimated" how much the Fijian Drua side would "fluster" them during their 35-18 victory at AAMI Park in Melbourne on Saturday night.
The Super Rugby Pacific leaders were frustrated by the competition newbies for much of the contest, struggling to find fluency and accuracy with a few anxious moments. The Blues needed two length-of-the-field intercept tries from wing AJ Lam and centre Rieko Ioane to pad their scoreline and emerge with a crucial bonus point - that should see them stay atop the ladder after this 'Super Round'.
Barrett said his side potentially "underestimated" how much Fijian Drua would stop them from playing their attacking style of rugby.
"It reminded me of the international games against Fiji last year," Barrett said post-game, after captaining the Blues for the first time.
"They're a typically tough Fijian side to play, they are physical and we expected that. Perhaps we underestimated how much they fluster you because of the lack of momentum we got.
"We weren't allowed to play our game at times, so that's where our frustration showed, ill-discipline and allowing them to get free rides."
Blues coach Leon MacDonald agreed it was a "scrappy performance" but was happy to get their eighth win of the season.
"We knew it was going to be a different type of game, we didn't get a flow going at all," MacDonald said.
"The Fiji boys played with a lot of intent and we were a little bit too ill-disciplined to be able to get any sort of momentum in the game, which was frustrating but we won and got five points and that's what we wanted."
A large amount of changes were made in the Blues lineup for their first game of the season across the Tasman, with nine adjustments to the starting XV that broke their win drought in Christchurch against the Crusaders last weekend.
"We did make some changes and there was a little bit of lack of continuity there but the changes we had to make, they were to make sure we were looking after our All Blacks - so some guys came in and stepped up and some guys looked a little bit rusty," MacDonald said.
MacDonald said the performance "wasn't all doom and gloom", saying he thought his side did some things well. He noted, however, that ill discipline cost them.
"I don't want to make excuses for our in-accuracy, especially our discipline. It's something we try to take pride in and be really disciplined," he said.
"We really wanted to deliver that and I think by-in-large we did that. I thought we created a lot of pressure with our defence and we looked good but then we would give a penalty away… so that was probably the most frustrating thing."
COVID-permitting, the Blues will travel to Perth to face Western Force next Friday.
