The coach of the defending champions, who go into Friday sitting three from the bottom of the competition ladder, Vern Cotter, said the Blues have not exhibited the same fire to win the competition as they showed last year.
"When you want to win a competition, it lives with you every day, and you breathe it. Your people around you can feel it. And we don't have that same intensity. We've forgotten.
"It's important we remind ourselves there's a competition, and you've got to engage yourself fully to be competition."
That point was made to the side in their Monday assessment of Anzac Day's loss to the Reds.
Inconsistency has contributed to the side's plight, and if they are to recover, their last four games are important.
"Becoming consistent for these last four games will be important for us and is something we're working towards for this week for the Force."
It could be a distraction while players were leaving next season, but that was part of professional sport.
What was important was finishing well and being fully engaged throughout. Players who were leaving would always want to be Blues men, and the pride associated with that was also part of the conversation.
Cotter repeated that he felt the team was easily satisfied, whether for one game or 10 minutes within a game.
"We've got to string things together. It's a learning curve as well.
"We've still got four games to go and if we find a little bit of the consistency we had last year we will surprise a few."
The Reds' performance was not a great one. They had got over the line four times but got nothing on the board.
"The tries we scored, we scored quite easily, probably too easily. Then, we got the red card and played 20 minutes with 14 men, which had an effect.
"There are things we can become much better at; giving a little bit more energy and bounce around what we do will be important.
"We've got four games. The first one is against the Force at home. After 80 minutes we'll see where we're at."