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'A lot of courage': Brumbies 'pleased' with hard-fought Super Round win

(Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)

Playing on a hot afternoon in Melbourne, the Brumbies showed plenty of “courage” throughout their hard-fought win over recent rivals the Blues in Super Round.

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It didn’t come easy, as both teams worked tirelessly at Melbourne’s AAMI Park.

Both teams had given it their all throughout two very different halves. After scoring 45-points between them in the first-half, the Blues and Brumbies were kept scoreless after the break.

The scoreless second-half set up a titanic finish, as the Blues unleashed one last attack on the Brumbies defensive line – but ultimately came up short.

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The game was over, the Brumbies had won, and all the effort that they’d shown throughout the clash had paid off for last year’ semi-finalists.

You could see it on the faces of their players as the full-time whistle sounded; sheer euphoria as they began to celebrate the win.

As for the Blues, they were left to rue missed chances, as they fell to a 1-1 record to start the season.

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Brumbies captain James Slipper praised the “courage” his teammates showed, but insisted that it’s only round two “so we’ll move on.”

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“Obviously pleased with the result. There was a lot of courage out there today,” Slipper told reporters.

“It was a hot day so we knew it was going to be a tough ask.

“The first-half, there was a lot of attack, plenty of tries, then that second-half was all character, it was about hanging in the moment and competing hard.

“We’re very pleased with the result but it’s round two so we’ll move on.”

The Brumbies took an early lead via the boot of goal-kicking halfback Ryan Lonergan.

But the Blues, who had two players yellow carded inside the opening 10 minutes, managed to snatch back the lead through a try to hooker Ricky Riccitelli.

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The first-half proved to be nothing short of an arm-wrestle – much like the second.

Head coach Stephen Larkham echoed his skippers thoughts on the “courage” the team showed, as they kept their unbeaten start to the season alive following the first two rounds of the season.

“We’ve put a lot of effort into the start of a campaign this year and just really pleased with how hard that game was and how hard our guys pushed,” Larkham said.

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“It was physical up front, there was a bit of a set-piece battle there at times, there was good breakdown pressure at times.

“Certainly very difficult defensively for us to continually get up with their big bodies coming at us.

“I was blown away by the amount of physicality and courage that our boys had out there today.

“We’re going out to play a certain way and the Blues went out to play a certain way, and sometimes It doesn’t eventuate for whatever reason,” he added.

“Today we were faced with that, we were faced with a situation where we didn’t quite to play the way we wanted to play, but we found a way to win.

“That’s something that we also want to see in this team is obviously there’s a style we want to play with but we also need a lot of heart and we saw that tonight.”

After playing in Melbourne this weekend, the Brumbies will return home to Canberra where they’ll take on Australian rivals the Queensland Reds on Saturday.

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Andrew 857 days ago

I think Barrett was secretly playing for the Brumbies.

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NH 58 minutes ago
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Agreed. I remember talking to you last year about not being convinced on noah. And I’m fully aware he isn’t the finished article, but to my mind he has been the obvious best option when quade/JOC are out of the picture. This has always been my argument, you only have to be the best bloke available for the jersey and noah has clearly been that imo. Donaldson in my eyes is of the Beale mould and still looks more like a ballplaying 15 then an out and out 10. Lynagh and HMP have all the talent in the world, but not the experience or game management yet to kick a team to win a 12-8 type RWC semi final win. At the moment they are super rugby players, not international players. It won’t happen but I’d probably start JOC and finish with Lynagh on the bench and ideally would have lynagh on the bench for the next 2-3 years until he is fully developed. Playing 10 at the moment is more of an old mans game where brains and problem solving are more important than linebreaks and flick passes. Its the renaissance of the russells, quades, sextons, pollards and maybe even farrells of the world. And the shame of it all is that aus rugby have now mishandled noah so badly after investing so much in him, that he is leaving aus shores just as the investment might pay off and so now we have to go through all the pain again. I’d almost put money on donno or lynagh leaving aus shores in the next 2-3 years after being chewed up and spat out from the same machine.

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