Blues finish season on winning note

The Blues have finished their Super rugby season on a winning note, beating the New South Wales Waratahs 34-28 in Auckland last night.

RNZI reports the Blues are the only New Zealand side not to have qualified for next week's playoffs but they have finished the season on a high with wins over the top two Australian sides, the Waratahs and the ACT Brumbies.

In a see-sawing battle at Eden Park the Blues outscored the Waratahs five tries to four.

Three of the nine tries were penalty tries, with the Waratahs awarded two and the Blues one.

Blues captain James Parsons was pleased with his side's effort.

"One thing we are trying to find here (at the Blues) is a bit of heart, a bit of passion and we've got a quote on our wall about leaving a little bit of ourselves out on the field and I felt we did that, especially toward the end of the first half."

"We fed off our defence tonight. We certainly didn't play as well as we would have liked on attack but we were pretty pleased with our scramble (on defence)"

Parsons said the end of season flourish was something to build on for 2017 - "as long as we those standards to the start of next season and lift the bar with a new squad we should be alright."