Highlanders 15
They respect his ability but they wonder how much better this Highlanders season might have been if he had stayed.
Nick Evans won few friends when he left Otago and it is safe to say the gifted back has just been scratched off a few more Christmas lists.
Evans, playing at Carisbrook as a member of the opposition for the first time in five years, carved the Highlanders to shreds on Saturday night, delivering a masterclass as the Blues took control in the first 20min and retained the Gordon Hunter Memorial Trophy.
He has got chicken legs, a motor mouth and a bank account that will soon be swelled considerably by Harlequins' piles of pounds, but on a night like this all you can judge Evans on is his talent.
The pace, the kicking, the vision, the feather-light running style - everything was on show.
He kicked three penalties in the first quarter, scored the first try when he chipped ahead and burned off Paul Williams, and got a second when he was on hand for prop John Afoa's pass.
After 32min, it was Nick Evans 21, the Highlanders 3.
No wonder the smile on his face was a mile wide.
"I had a wonderful time down here," Evans said of the four seasons in which he earned 32 caps for the Highlanders and 26 for Otago, and became an All Black.
"I made my name down here and I owe a lot to Highlander and Otago rugby.
It's always going to be very special to come down here."
Evans started his first-class career as a fullback but turned into a world-class first five for the Highlanders and the All Blacks.
In recent weeks, his career has taken another 180deg turn.
With Isa Nacewa going in to first five, and Evans back to fullback, the Blues have regained some of the mojo they seemed to have lost in the middle of the season.
"I haven't played fullback since the World Cup.
It's taken me a couple of games to find my feet back there," Evans said.
The Highlanders lost Evans in his prime and now New Zealand rugby is to suffer the same fate.
His future is all about grey afternoons, 10-man rugby and squeezing every last financial gain out of his ability.
With Dan Carter set to join the exodus, the pressure is on to find a test-worthy first five.
Evans hopes his decision to leave will not prevent him earning a few more caps but is otherwise avoiding talk of the international season.
"I'm not really thinking about that now.
I've got my decision out of the way and it's all done and dusted.
It's behind me and I'm just concentrating on the next couple of weeks."
Evans deservedly took all the plaudits but all of the Blues were efficient in their systematic demolition of the Highlanders.
They ran with confidence, from flyers Rudi Wulf and David Smith to big boys Afoa and Tony Woodcock.
The Blue scrum consistently put the heat on an improving but green Highlanders front row, and the Blues line-out fair hummed from go to whoa.
Defensively, the Blues were brick-wall tight in the first half, and after they were stunned by two Highlanders tries, they regrouped and finished strongly.
They were cracking Highlanders tries, too.
The first came when Jimmy Cowan took a quick tap, Johnny Leota followed up and stepped the defender, and Aaron Bancroft scored his fifth try of the season.
The second was even better.
Craig Newby made a divine break, Leota and Bancroft carried the move on, and Cowan delivered a perfect cross kick for Adam Thomson to score.
But the tries, and the individual efforts of Thomson and Leota, were rare high points on a night where the Highlanders were exposed as Super 14 lightweights, and a boy called Evans broke everybody's heart again.
Blues 40 (Nick Evans 2, Rudi Wulf, Anthony Tuitavake, David Smith tries; Evans 3 conversions, 3 penalty goals), Highlanders 15 (Aaron Bancroft, Adam Thomson tries; Mike Delany conversion, penalty goal).
Half-time: 26-3.
Referee: Chris Pollock (New Zealand).
Crowd: About 7500.
