You search for finals-polish at this stage of the season and the ACT Brumbies showed it in multiple areas when beating the Highlanders.
The 48-32 scoreline at Canberra’s GIO Stadium was less important than how it was achieved for a team in second spot with a four-point buffer to third.
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What did we learn on an ideal Sunday afternoon for such an entertaining game of rugby?
1 FINALS POINTERS
Four times the Highlanders hit the Brumbies with tries and four times the Canberra-based side responded with a rapid bounce-back try to regain the lead or close the gap to a single point.
That takes composure. It takes even more of that ingredient to be down to 14 men and score two excellent second half-time tries with the game in the balance.
The Brumbies have found an accelerator over the final 20 minutes in quite a few of their matches this season with reserves chiming in on theme. At the hour mark, the Brumbies were down 32-26 and found a clinical 22-0 spurt to put the Kiwis away.
It’s never one weapon or the same move turning the tide. Two-try speedster Corey Toole and backrower Pete Samu really stepped up in the second half.
And didn’t that slick lineout variation work a treat for Samu's first try.
2 HAPPY BIG BROTHER HOUSEHOLD
Darcy Swain’s delight at scoring his first Super Rugby try was obvious.
It meant even more to the big lock that the pass came from centre Len Ikitau, who embraced him immediately.
The pair were former teammates at Brisbane Boys’ College and housemates when they came to Canberra to forge their Brumbies and Wallabies careers out of the old National Rugby Championship.
Ikitau’s own try was again a reflection of why teammates know he has a body like concrete when you try to tackle him. He bent several Highlanders defenders with his post-contact strength for a quality dot-down with his left hand.
3 SPEED KILLS
There are few more exciting figures to watch in Super Rugby Pacific than flyer Corey Toole when he has a little space.
The former sevens star has seven tries in his debut season and none better than his long-range chip-and-regather try from 50m out.
Pure gas helped create and finish it. Never undervalue the ability to get the ball wide to give him such chances because Tom Wright’s cutout ball was excellent.
Compare that to the weekly struggle that NSW Waratahs winger Nawaqanitawase has to get more than a few good balls in his hands each game.
If there was an old-fashioned Wallabies tour on the calendar this year with a bunch of midweek games, Toole would be picked.
A World Cup squad is like nothing else. There’s little scope to groom and develop players in that environment. You want everyone ready to play and schooled up already. His defence has been good this year but for rare misses like the one on tryscorer Thomas Umaga-Jensen.
Toole will get his chance at some stage in the future.
4 NIC WHITE INJURY
The Wallabies halfback’s exit after 35 minutes looked to be because of a sternum injury.
His class had already made an impact.
His awareness to take an early intercept and diffusing a Highlanders chip kick behind his own tryline were moments of anticipation bred by experience.
His short-side direction for the Ikitau try and feeding Jahrome Brown might have looked routine but they often do when done efficiently.
He’s on the plane for the Rugby World Cup and the Wallabies will select two further halfbacks. In-form Queensland Reds halfback Tate McDermott will be another so it’s a coin flip between Ryan Lonergan and Jake Gordon for the third spot.
5 PLAY-OFF RACE
We’ve almost reached a four-way race for the eighth and final spot in the play-offs.
The eighth-placed Western Force (18 points) sit marginally ahead of the Fijian Drua (17), Highlanders (15) and Melbourne Rebels (15) with three rounds to go.
You can enjoy the tightness of that race but there’s something askew with the number of teams heading to the play-offs. Eight is too many when a team might sneak through with an ordinary 6-8 win-loss record or even 5-9.
Gut feeling…there’ll be a play-off spot on the line when the Reds meet the Fijian Drua in Suva on June 3 in the final round.
