Three games, three wins, three different styles.
The Brumbies’ season keeps building after wins over the Blues, Sunwolves and Bulls in the last three games. Add that to an away win against the Stormers with prior wins against the Lions, Waratahs and Chiefs, the Brumbies’ season is gathering momentum nicely towards the finals after a slow start to the season.
What has been most impressive about the recent run is the execution of different game plans to achieve their victories. Built on an excellent all-around forward pack and set pieces, they have also found ways to get the back line into the game to score points. While not always pretty, they have managed to tweak their game plans to keep the opposition off guard and in the last few games have produced some outstanding backline tries.
Starting with the Blues, the Canberra men chose to stick to their recent strength and utilised the rolling maul to score three tries. Against New Zealand opposition, who thrive on loose play and with backline weapons who can really punish errors, it made sense to play tight.
They received some unnecessary criticism, but any win over Kiwi teams should be commended after the last few years. And hey, if it works why change?
Next up against the Sunwolves, who although are bottom of the table can cause trouble (just ask the Waratahs), the Brumbies produced a dominant display. Keeping an opposition scoreless is fairly rare these days so their defence was obviously excellent.
The forwards and set-pieces were again outstanding, providing the platform for some sublime tries, particularly Tom Bank’s effort finishing off a beautiful backline play to make those in the Gregan-Larkham Stand reminisce of another era. It wasn’t a perfect effort, with the game a little stop-start, but a solid confidence-building day at the office.
Last night against the Bulls, who just last week outplayed the Rebels, the Brumbies again produced some nice variation to misdirect their opponent. The Bulls are a big pack with some of the best set-piece play in the competition.
The Brumbies can match them, but knew they would have a tough time dominating, so instead they used the rolling maul as a distraction and tried a few variations culminating in Tevita Kuridrani’s second try.
In open play they were also very impressive, using runners from depth, nice interplay by the tight forwards and smartly ensuring tacklers got a knee to the ground to avoid being held up the Bulls’ big forwards.
A bonus point victory against the top South African team is an outstanding result in what looked on paper like a dangerous game. They even left a few points out there, particularly with Christian Lealiifano’s poor night off the tee, but it was a shame the crowd was so small.
(Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
They haven’t been perfect, however. Their clearance from the 22 hasn’t been great this year and last night a charged down kick led to a conceded try off the ensuing scrum. They have a tendency to concede points immediately after scoring too.
Kicking in general play has been poor and until the last few games Joe Powell seemed to forget his role is to pass, not to box kick.
My biggest criticism, however, is the inability to really put a team away. Last night was a perfect example, where they didn’t score any points after the 57th minute so the game wasn’t really locked up until the last five minutes.
They have also lost several games after leading at half time, with the loss against the Rebels in Melbourne the worst example. But pleasingly they are correcting these errors as the season progresses.
Dan McKellar is certainly building an effective all-around squad in Canberra and they should win their final three games. That is exactly the sort of momentum you need to go deep into the finals. While the Crusaders and Hurricanes are a class above, the Brumbies are doing all the right things to be a serious threat.
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