Before the Blues played the Brumbies at Eden Park a New Zealand Navy helicopter landed on the pitch to deliver the match ball.

The pilot should have picked up David Nucifora before departing and dropped him off at Auckland Airport's international terminal.

It's all very well coaching a team when they keep winning, all you have to do is keep ticking along nicely.

But the mark of a good coach is turning a team around when things have gone bad.

This is the second straight season the Blues' campaign has come off the rails and both times he's been unable to get them back on track.

Last year all was going well until they lost to the Sharks in Albany and they were never able to recover, and it's been just the same for the Blues this year since they were upset by the same team in Durban in round four.

Maybe it's because Nucifora is too nice a bloke, or maybe it's because there's too many egos in the team. But whatever it is Nucifora is failing with the biggest and arguably the most important franchise in New Zealand.

For the sake of their fans, it would be better for him to stay in Australia after the bye week, give the top job to Greg Cooper for the remainder of the season and install Pat Lam as assistant.

There comes a point when you can't keep putting ordinary performances down to off weeks and you come to the realisation that the Blues under Nucifora are rotten.

Whether Nucifora has actually put pen to paper on a contract with the ARU yet is irrelevant, the fact is he's been in discussions with them.

Surely this brings into question his loyalty to the Blues and why did he sign a new two-year deal at the end of last season when, first of all he was linked with the Wallabies job and now he's in discussions about the High Performance position? And don't forget he was interviewed for the Reds head coach job last year too.

The team haven't played to their strengths for a couple of months. They have gems in their backline but they are getting starved of action.

Discipline is poor. Too many times this season they've been marched back 10m for giving the referee backchat and last night their captain Troy Flavell's hot head gifted the Brumbies their first try.

If only the job was offered to Warren Gatland last year ...