Is Graham Henry the Answer for the Blues?

On Friday night, rugby fans in Melbourne got to witness two franchises that are heading in opposite directions.

The home side, the Melbourne Rebels, appear to finally be justifying their place in Super Rugby in their 5th season and are well in the mix for the Australian conference title thanks to some gutsy wins over the Brumbies and Crusaders away and the Chiefs at home.

The Rebels ditched their initial formula of recruiting stars like Danny Cipriani, Kurtley Beale and James O'Connor who brought nothing but trouble and instability to a franchise trying to establish itself in a saturated Melbourne sports market, reverting to heart, grit and youth, and it has worked.

Under the guidance of unheralded coach, Tony McGahan and with the experience of seasoned professionals, Tamati Ellison, Mike Harris and Scott Higginbotham, the Rebels have blossomed

In Nic Stirzaker, Bryce Hegarty and Jack Debrezceni, the Rebels have the personnel for a young but promising halves combo that could feature nationally in 1-2 seasons time.

The Rebels have been as entertaining as the Hurricanes and Crusaders at home but have shown the ability to play a more compact and tighter game and close down opponents and keep themselves in games.

Against a Blues side down on confidence, the Rebels chose to be expressive, scoring 5 tries and sealing a well earned bonus point.

It just shows you how bad this season has been for John Kirwan's men that the Rebels came into this game as favourites.

Much criticism has been labelled at Sir John Kirwan who in my mind is still a fine coach. However, the Blues organisation is a complicated and apolitical machine that has created an environment for failure, in contrast to the organisation down the Waikato Expressway in Hamilton or across the Desert Road in Wellington.

The Blues could really learn from the Hurricanes organisation which has finally found a winning formula. In John Kirwan, they have a passionate Auckland rugby man. He now needs another man who knows Auckland and Blues rugby in charge at the top.

Could Sir Graham Henry be that man, i.e. could he stomach having an executive role ala Sir Alex Ferguson at Man United?

Henry and Blues success go hand in hand and he knows the formula to get the Blues back on track. Players would also start choosing to stay in Auckland rather than departing for other franchises as we have seen with Fekitoa, Naholo, etc.

At the very least, the Blues could look to their younger opponents on Friday night to see what has gone right to fix what has gone wrong or continue their terminal decline from 2003.