The ACT Brumbies are making no secret of their desire to complete unfinished business this Super Rugby Pacific season.
After a frustrating run bowing out in the semi-finals in the past five straight full Super Rugby campaigns, the Brumbies are intent on at least making the title match for the first time since 2013.
Incredibly and incredulously, Australia’s perennial benchmark outfit have fallen at the penultimate stage of the competition in 2019 and from 2022-25, either side of winning Super Rugby AU during COVID in 2021.
The 2020 tournament was a complete wipe-out due to the pandemic.
Stephen Larkham’s men enter the last regular-season round in fifth spot and needing to beat Moana Pasifika in Canberra on Saturday, while hoping the Crusaders lose to the table-topping Hurricanes, in order to snatch the all-important fourth spot on the ladder.
With the winners of the next week’s three “quarter-finals” plus the highest-ranked losing team to advance to the semis, taking fourth position looms as critical.
“So we’re sort of concentrating on Saturday afternoon, 2:30, and then we can sit up and have a beer after and watch those (other) games, but we can control what we can control and hopefully some results go our way to help us climb the ladder,” veteran Andy Muirhead said on Tuesday.
“With finals so close now, we know that we have to put a solid game together against Moana and then that helps build some momentum going into the finals, which is always going to be huge for us.
“We haven’t gone particularly well in our final series the past couple of years, so we always want to rectify that and it starts this weekend, making sure there’s aspects in our game that we work on that weren’t so good last weekend.”
Last-placed Moana are likely playing their final game in Super Rugby after being told they’d be cut next season.
The Brumbies are suitably treating this weekend as a danger game.
“Any team that has nothing to lose is always a dangerous team to play,” Muirhead said.
“We’re not going into this game thinking that it’s a dead rubber. We’ve got a lot to play for as well, so I think that helps with our mindset.
“We’re going to put a pretty good performance on this weekend and hopefully get some points on to try and climb the ladder.”
