Melbourne Rebels winger Monty Ioane believes the club need to avoid the trap of playing safe and conservative if they wish to be playing finals football.
The Rebels enter Sunday's clash with the ACT Brumbies coming off a hard-fought victory over Moana Pasifika.
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The Rebels led by 28 points after a blistering first half, only for a late slip to give Pasifika a shot at their first win before Ioane iced the game with his first try for the Rebels.
It reflects a worrying trend for the Rebels, guilty of slipping away from their game plan once they hit the front.
They held second-half leads against the Blues and Crusaders before last year's finalists ran away with bonus-point victories in Melbourne.
“Our biggest problem is we’ve been so close in quite a lot of the games we’ve let slip away," Ioane told Rugby.com.au
“We just go into this mindset and you saw it last week, we were all over them and then we went to this conservative Rugby (style) and we ended up losing the bonus point.
“I think it’s a change of mindset we need to have because a lot of them games we’re so close but because we’re ahead we go into this safe Rugby mindset and go away from what we are really good at.
“In the first half against the Kiwis, we started to play that kick-chase style of footy and then in the second we ended up playing chase Rugby, ball in hand and we started playing well…once we’re way ahead we taper off to that safe Rugby.
“(Kevin) Footy and Tim Sampson have been emphasising that careless style of footy and for us boys to execute that and stay in the game."
The Rebels will be boosted by the return of Richard Hardwick after his impressive season was derailed by a freak training accident.
Stacey Ili also slots into the centres, with Ioane speaking to the importance of utilising their stacked backline full of Test and Sevens experience.
“We felt like throughout the season we were probably using the forwards too much and overrunning them,” Ioane explained.
“This week we still had that same prep and plan but more so just playing out the back a little more and we had a lot of gain from it.
“Now that we have Kellaway (back), who is a really experienced player, he gives more organisation from the back, especially in those wide channels. We’ve got Carter Gordon but also ‘Hodgey’ who is like a second ten…they can organise those pods a lot better than in the past.”
REBELS (1-15): Matt Gibbon, Alex Mafi, Sam Talakai, Angelo Smith, Trevor Hosea, Josh Kemeny, Brad Wilkin (c), Richard Hardwick, Ryan Louwrens, Carter Gordon, Monty Ioane, Stacey Ili, Reece Hodge, Lachie Anderson, Andrew Kellaway
RESERVES: Jordan Uelese, Cabous Eloff, Pone Fa'amausili, Tim Cardell, Vaiolini Ekuasi, James Tuttle, David Feliuai, Joe Pincus
