Blues head coach Tana Umaga has revealed he will be looking at himself following their humiliating 48-21 defeat to the Sunwolves on Saturday.
The Tokyo loss saw the Blues throw away a 21-14 half-time lead, as the Sunwolves dominated the second 40 in Tokyo, leaving Umaga livid.
"You can't take anything for granted in this competition," Umaga told the New Zealand Herald. "I have got to look at myself and the way I help prepare this team and whether we did that right coming over early and trying to motivate them for a one-off game after the break. I will look at myself first before I look at the players and that performance.
"Did I help them enough? I can't play but I can still have an influence on how they prepare. We thought what we were doing was right but obviously it wasn't. We can't go pointing fingers at players and what they're doing; we've got to look at ourselves. It's probably symptomatic of our season and not being able to live with being favourites and the pressure that comes along with that."
He added: "They just wanted it more. That's all down to attitude. At the contact area they challenged us there and their defence was relentless. It made us make errors. We lacked a bit of focus on our game and when you haven't got the attitude right we get what we got today."
The Blues finish the season with seven wins from their 15 matches, with players such as Charlie Faumuina and Steven Luatua now moving on for European clubs. Umaga admits the team must improve and is determined to get them on an upward curve when they return for 2018's campaign.
"I'm positive in what I can do and confident in my own ability. I have to be otherwise I shouldn't be here. I've got another year on my contract. I'll see that out and see what happens after that. We all realise this is a results-driven game. As long as we're improving hopefully I keep putting opportunities up there for myself," he said.
"Everyone remembers your last performance and it's not a good one for us going into our end of season. The hardest thing is we've got guys who put a lot into this club and to send them off on that note is not fitting from us.
"We're at the point we are because of these inconsistencies we're showing. We're not being able to front games where we're meant to do well in. That's attitude and preparation and mindset and we've got to keep pushing on that.
"I'm still happy with certain aspects of this season and if we can get more of those we could be in a different spot this time next year. We've got to make sure everything about our season doesn't fall into this one game.
"I think it's another step forward from where we were last year. We'd like to have made those steps in three and fours but at the moment we're making them in ones and twos. It's a slow process."
The post Umaga to look at himself first appeared first on Planet Rugby.