ACT Brumbies hooker Lachlan Lonergan is hoping to celebrate his 50th game in style as he returns to the starting side to face the Blues.
Lonergan marks his 50-game milestone with the Brumbies after making his Super debut in 2020.
"It was a dream to debut for them and to get 50 caps is even better," said Lonergan, who was among the tryscorers from the bench last round's loss to the Chiefs.
"I just want to play as many game as I can for them and reaching 50 games is pretty awesome so I'm excited to get out there."
The Canberra-raised rake's season last year was ended after his leg was broken in an awkward hip drop tackle.
"It's pretty obvious when it happened…It was more just a bit of shock,” he said on the injury in October
“I was fortunate all the doctors and whatnot were just on the sideline right where I was but the sad thing is in sport this will happen.
“I've had a pretty good run so far in my career (with injuries). Hopefully, it doesn't happen again and I'm at the pointy end (or recovery) and just looking back to play some footy.”
The Brumbies have remained in New Zealand after last week's loss to the ladder leaders, embracing the mini-tour of NZ.
It's a far cry from previous preparations, which meant the team would spend considerable time flying from Canberra to Auckland via a number of hubs.
"Usually coming over here to Auckland there's a fair amount of travel to get here, and we're arriving two nights before the game, and it's kind of a disjointed preparation," Larkham said.
"This time around, we spent a couple of days in Hamilton and we have now landed in Auckland, and we had a good training session.
"We've learned a lot over the last 12 months around our program, the way that we want to prepare.
"We encountered the Blues twice last year, and we feel that we've learned a lot from those games.
"We see the way that they're playing this year, and we think that we've got a really good game plan."
