The Brumbies have extra motivation heading into Saturday's Final with the Reds after prop James Slipper was ruled out with injury.
Slipper suffered a knee injury during the 21-9 win over the Western Force and is expected to miss a couple of weeks.
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For Slipper, the injury once again rules him out of a big decider in his home state of Queensland, missing the Reds' 2011 triumphs after picking up a syndesmosis tear in the final regular season injury.
“Gutted for him. He would’ve loved to have played in front of friends and family up at Suncorp where he represented many teams on many occasions,” Brumbies prop Scott Sio said.
“I understand that we’ve got to do the job for him and those are unfortunately missing out this week and making sure that we bring some silverware back for them.”
Sio comes into the line-up for Slipper, setting up a tantalising match-up with Wallabies teammate Taniela Tupou.
Given the growing profile of 'Tongan Thor', Sio doesn't have to go far for footage.
“I just watch Instagrams because he’s on all the socials at the moment so I don’t have to go too far than my phone,” he joked.
“He’s been one of the top performers over the past years and he’s one of their go-to men in their team up there.
“They’re a team of 23 at the end of the day so we need to make sure we do our job and roles individually to make sure that the team is successful.”
With both teams set to heavily rely on their set-pieces to assert dominance, Sio and the Brumbies are keeping their focus on playing 'Brumbies Rugby'.
“There always a great set-piece team and they thrive on it so we know it’s going to be a big day for us up there,” Sio said.
“We’ve got to front up and play Brumbies rugby for 80 minutes.”
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It’s a rematch of the 2020 Super Rugby AU decider as the Reds host the Brumbies on Saturday 8 May at Suncorp Stadium, kicking off at 7:45 pm AEST.Click here to purchase tickets to one of the most anticipated Rugby matches of the year.
