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Caleb Clarke scored a hat trick as the Auckland Blues won their first Super Rugby title since 2003 with a 41-10 win over the Waikato Chiefs on Saturday.
In the humid conditions at Eden Park, the relentless home side proved too strong and scored five goals to secure a beautiful victory in the final.
The Blues won the 2021 Super Rugby Trans-Tasman Championship in a reduced competition schedule due to the pandemic.
Trailing 20-3 at halftime, the Chiefs were effectively shutout as the Blues negated the influence of flyhalf Damian McKenzie.
The damp conditions were a boon to the Blues, who under new coach Vern Cotter played an efficient style of play that proved difficult to contain with 15 wins from 17 games this season.
Blues halfback Harry Plummer made all seven of his field goal attempts and scored 16 points, helping the Blues to their 16th straight win at Eden Park.
Plummer said the Blues were long overdue for a championship.
“We’ve failed at that final hurdle the last few years,” Plummer said.
“I’m glad we did it for all the boys who won before us because I know they’ll be watching and they deserve this success too.
“We played the way we wanted to play. We had a game plan and the guys played hard. That’s Blues rugby, that’s rugby under Vern Cotter.”
Home team captain Patrick Tuipulotu was excellent in locking down the ball, returning to action just two weeks after damaging knee ligaments in the quarter-final.
Tuipulotu and several of his teammates will be pushing hard to be included in the All Blacks squad to be announced on Monday for two home Tests against England next month.
Clarke was among them, crossing three times after winger Akira Ioane scored early on in what was his final game for the Blues before signing a contract with the Japanese club.
Clarke’s first try was courtesy of some fine ball skills from the Ione brothers, who miraculously kept the ball when Rieko and Akira appeared to have been tackled out of bounds.
Chiefs’ hopes were dashed shortly after half-time when striker George Dale was shown a yellow card following persistent fouling.
Shortly afterwards, Clark received a long pass from halfback Finley Christie and scored his third goal.
After substitute forward Simon Parker grabbed a consolation five points for the Chiefs, midfield defender AJ Lam scored their final goal.
Chiefs captain Luke Jacobson conceded his side were beaten for the second time in a row in the finals, having lost to the Crusaders in Hamilton last year.
“The Blues set us up offensively from the beginning tonight and made it very difficult for us,” Jacobson said.
“We didn’t get it done, but we have a very tight culture and we’ll be back again.”
Their only two titles came back-to-back in 2012 and 2013 under Dave Rennie.
The Blues’ victory ended the reign of the Canterbury Crusaders, who had previously won seven consecutive titles but failed to reach the knockout stages this year.
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