'A lot of courage': Brumbies 'pleased' with hard-fought Super Round win

Playing on a hot afternoon in Melbourne, the Brumbies showed plenty of “courage” throughout their hard-fought win over recent rivals the Blues in Super Round.

It didn’t come easy, as both teams worked tirelessly at Melbourne’s AAMI Park.

Both teams had given it their all throughout two very different halves. After scoring 45-points between them in the first-half, the Blues and Brumbies were kept scoreless after the break.

The scoreless second-half set up a titanic finish, as the Blues unleashed one last attack on the Brumbies defensive line – but ultimately came up short.

The game was over, the Brumbies had won, and all the effort that they’d shown throughout the clash had paid off for last year’ semi-finalists.

You could see it on the faces of their players as the full-time whistle sounded; sheer euphoria as they began to celebrate the win.

As for the Blues, they were left to rue missed chances, as they fell to a 1-1 record to start the season.

Brumbies captain James Slipper praised the “courage” his teammates showed, but insisted that it’s only round two “so we’ll move on.”

“Obviously pleased with the result. There was a lot of courage out there today,” Slipper told reporters.

“It was a hot day so we knew it was going to be a tough ask.

“The first-half, there was a lot of attack, plenty of tries, then that second-half was all character, it was about hanging in the moment and competing hard.

“We’re very pleased with the result but it’s round two so we’ll move on.”

The Brumbies took an early lead via the boot of goal-kicking halfback Ryan Lonergan.

But the Blues, who had two players yellow carded inside the opening 10 minutes, managed to snatch back the lead through a try to hooker Ricky Riccitelli.

The first-half proved to be nothing short of an arm-wrestle – much like the second.

Head coach Stephen Larkham echoed his skippers thoughts on the “courage” the team showed, as they kept their unbeaten start to the season alive following the first two rounds of the season.

“We’ve put a lot of effort into the start of a campaign this year and just really pleased with how hard that game was and how hard our guys pushed,” Larkham said.

“It was physical up front, there was a bit of a set-piece battle there at times, there was good breakdown pressure at times.

“Certainly very difficult defensively for us to continually get up with their big bodies coming at us.

“I was blown away by the amount of physicality and courage that our boys had out there today.

“We’re going out to play a certain way and the Blues went out to play a certain way, and sometimes It doesn’t eventuate for whatever reason,” he added.

“Today we were faced with that, we were faced with a situation where we didn’t quite to play the way we wanted to play, but we found a way to win.

“That’s something that we also want to see in this team is obviously there’s a style we want to play with but we also need a lot of heart and we saw that tonight.”

After playing in Melbourne this weekend, the Brumbies will return home to Canberra where they’ll take on Australian rivals the Queensland Reds on Saturday.