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'It's not David and Goliath': Brumbies insist they can match the Blues
By AAP
The Brumbies insist they have the game to match the Blues, but know execution will be key in their Super Rugby Pacific top-of-the table clash on Saturday night.
The Canberra side were filthy at themselves after a sloppy first half saw them unable to peg back the Crusaders, falling to a 37-26 loss last round.
The Brumbies badly missed first-choice five-eighth Noah Lolesio, who suffered a head knock and is no certainty to front the Blues at GIO Stadium this week.
They also felt the loss of powerhouse Wallabies backrower Rob Valetini, who is sidelined with a hamstring complaint.
The Blues, who have only dropped one game for the season to be runaway leaders, scoring 124 points in their last two games.
But Brumbies lock Darcy Swain said they felt they were on par with their Kiwi rivals.
"We're not filthy at ourselves because the Crusaders are a good team," Swain said on Monday.
"The Blues are similar but we know we can roll with it.
"It's not David and Goliath, we're right up there, and the footy at the moment is really good footy and we're confident in that."
Swain said they felt they didn't need to change much about their approach, but just be better, with personal errors proving costly.
"We made too many mistakes - we hurt ourselves as we were pretty disappointed about that," Swain said.
"The Blues will be a similar team to the Crusaders, they're a pretty sharp outfit.
"We've got to back ourselves to play our game - we've got to keep playing the way we've been playing."
The Wallabies forward said the Brumbies need to look back on their recent performance against the fourth-placed Chiefs, who they beat by 10 points.
"We were flat, we were really explosive, we were looking for holes in seams and it just needs to be the same as that," Swain said.
The loss to the Crusaders was just their Brumbies' second for the season, leading the Australian charge against the strong Kiwi outfits with two rounds to play.
The Waratahs, who face the Highlanders in Dunedin, are in sixth place, one spot ahead of the Reds who host Moana Pasifika.
The top eight play off in the finals.
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There is nothing particularly significant about Ireland in this regard compared to other Tier 1 nations. To look at 'strategy' for illegal play its best to see what teams push boundaries with new laws. SA have milked two tries at ruck block downs. The strategy is to charge the first few before the ball is out at about 4 seconds but pull out and put up hands in reigned apology. The referees usually allow the scum half to clear without awarding a penalty in this scenario. The problem with that being that the scrumhalf is now taking over 5 seconds through no fault of his own. Having achieved a few slow balls > 5s , the SA forward can now pick a scrum to charge dead on 5s. Now if the scrum half waits, he will concede a penalty, as we saw against Scotland. With the new rule in place, any early charge should result in an immediate penalty.
SA also got an offside block against England which was pivotal again after a couple of 'apologetic' offside aborted charges forcing England to clear slowly.
Go to commentsYep, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed are you?
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