When Mark Twain talked about lies, damned lies and statistics, he clearly wasn’t referencing the 2024 Super Rugby champions, the Blues. Their 41-10 win was not only a superb exhibition of wet-weather, finals football, it tied directly to every meaningful metric.

Wrap your head around the Chiefs being forced to make 221 tackles to the Blues’ 84. 133 rucks won by the Blues, at 98.5 per cent efficiency. Twelve penalties to five. 66 per cent possession. And the most telling of all: 77.6 per cent territory, with an incredible 45.4 per cent of the match being played in the Chief’s defensive 22.

That’s an illustration of a highly cohesive team operating at extreme efficiency. The many outstanding individual performances were merely a few cherries scattered on top.

Those cherries included the Ioane brothers saving their best work for their final match together; their creation of a try for Caleb Clarke in no space at all, quite special.

Clarke, reborn this year, all explosive power and thrust, is now the scorer of a hat-trick in a Super Rugby final. And if the provider of his third try, halfback Finlay Christie, wasn’t quite using Aaron Smith’s low-flying missile launcher, he was showing the vision and execution which will frank his All Black selection later today.

What about Harry Plummer, sneaky better than solid all year at 10, drilling an outstanding 7/7 from the kicking tee?

Highest praise however was reserved for skipper Patrick Tuipulotu, who in the space of a few days, went from no hope of playing to delivering 57 minutes of the highest quality. After too many ‘so near but stick with us for next year’ interviews, nobody deserved a victory speech more than he. And how humbly and graciously delivered it was, too.

There’s not actually a lot to say about the Chiefs. Their finals blueprint – fire out of the blocks and build an early lead – was turned on its head early and, constantly pinned deep in their own half, they couldn’t find any way to assert themselves on the game.

Less a reflection of their own failings, this was almost entirely down to a beautifully balanced Blues side; urgent and organised in defence, unrelentingly powerful in attack.

That it took winning coach Vern Cotter 78 minutes to crack a smile bodes ill for other title-seeking franchises. That wasn’t the look of a man expecting to wait another 21 years for his next championship.

A word too for the officials; Brett Cronan mastering the art of TMO-manship in efficiently ruling on Akira Ioane’s try, and Nick Berry, albeit reluctant to follow through on multiple final warnings, consistently accurate and demonstrating just the right feel for the occasion.

By contrast with Eddie Jones leaving Michael Hooper, Quade Cooper and Len Ikitau out of last year’s World Cup, Friday’s announcement of Joe Schmidt’s first Wallabies squad was met with little dissent.

That’s a tick of recognition for Schmidt’s steadier hand, and demonstrates respect for what he brings to the table from his time with Ireland and his contribution to last year’s All Black World Cup campaign.

But while it’s a good thing for a rugby community weary from two decades of Bledisloe famine, sustained Super Rugby drought and World Cup desolation to align around this selection, this isn’t quite the good news it appears to be on the surface.

In a number of positions, Schmidt’s squad picked itself, there being few credible alternatives for fans and media to argue the toss over. The muted reaction is also a signal that increasing numbers of fans have lost their passion and fight for rugby.

Almost certainly, fires will be re-lit in bellies as soon as positive results begin to accrue. But actions have consequences, and there is a limit to the number of times Wallabies fans can be expected to trudge out of a humiliating defeat, as they did in Lyon in November, having spent a small fortune to be there, before they really do switch off from Australian rugby.

How do we know this is true? Because increasingly, Australia’s players are doing the same thing.

With no disrespect intended to new squad selections Angus Blyth, Ryan Smith and Jeremy Williams, let’s use lock as an example. In no particular order, consider some of the overseas-based names who might have been selected ahead of them; Skelton, Arnold, Arnold, Coleman, Meafou, Philip, Simmons, Staniforth, Rodda. To that list, some might add Hockings.

At his press conference, Schmidt said all of the right things about his players and framed positively, the outlook for his squad. But one wonders if, in his most private, honest moments, he really expected to be picking from such a limited field?

One thing in Schmidt’s favour is that his coaching and support group is demonstrably superior to last year. Whatever can be extracted out of this group, will be.

Also important is that the Wallabies’ first opponent is Wales; the major rugby nation most closely resembling Australia in terms of lack of hardened Test match experience, and an overriding negative sentiment for the game.

But the runway is short. Schmidt’s Ireland built its identity and formidable record on familiarity and cohesion. This Wallabies side will be given clarity around a game plan and the individual roles within. As a result, they will be competitive from the get-go, but there are too many new players learning on the run – about Test rugby, about each other – for expectations to be set too high.

Limiting Wallabies selection to Australian-based players (with occasional exceptions) has been a policy employed by Rugby Australia, to hold players in Super Rugby. Understandable, and in my view, correct.

But such a policy is justifiable only for as long as Super Rugby is worth protecting. If Rugby Australia and NZ Rugby are genuinely invested in Super Rugby and are fully committed to retaining its standing as one of the few elite rugby competitions in the world, then that’s fair enough.

But let’s hear that commitment restated with genuine conviction, along with detail around what is being done to reinvigorate the competition and reconnect it to rugby’s fanbase.

If not – if all fans have to go on is the demise of a franchise that was demonstrably headed in the right direction, and the awful trainwreck that is the Waratahs – and Super Rugby is on its last legs, then Giteau’s Law makes no sense.

The folly that was the expectation that leading Rebels players would willingly relocate to the Waratahs is being exposed for what it is; a gross misunderstanding of what drives players. The two things they want are to be part of what they believe is, or will become, a winning franchise, and to attach themselves to a program they unequivocally believe in.

Yet here is an organisation that, despite everyone being told Darren Coleman was a dead man walking early in the year, is still without a coach. That is missing nearly half a roster and is particularly thin in experienced, forward power. Without a GM of Rugby to offer prospective players any vision and surety that they’re not about to be stepping into a broken culture.

Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh is right to prioritise restoration of the Waratahs; New South Wales is undoubtedly Australia’s most important rugby market. Just three representatives in this 38-man Wallaby squad is scarcely believable and is an appalling indictment.

The current player flight however, is not all about Tahs-avoidance. Across the board, it is clear that players have stopped listening to Rugby Australia.

Yes, there are those who have returned to Australia, mostly for family reasons. And those on the way up, promising players yet to develop sufficient currency as targets for overseas clubs, and for whom a potential Wallabies jersey is a real carrot.

But players who were part of the World Cup debacle, players horrified at how Dave Rennie was treated, players offered contracts a quarter or third of that tabled to Joseph Suaalii, players who were attached to a franchise they loved and believed in and watched it be torn down, don’t believe any more that their better interest is served by staying in Australia.

Some of them will be betting on termination of the Giteau Law. If that doesn’t happen, disqualifying themselves from a Wallabies Test jumper is a risk they’re prepared, sadly, to take.

In the meantime, Joe Schmidt is tasked with fashioning something credible from the players who remain. Luckily, he’s a good man, an excellent rugby coach, and he will make a good fist of it.