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Recap: Brumbies vs Highlanders LIVE | Super Rugby

Brumbies vs Highlanders Live Match Centre

Follow all the action on the RugbyPass live blog from the Super Rugby match between the Brumbies and Highlanders at GIO Stadium. 

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Keep up to date with the latest score, stats and join the conversation from anywhere in the world in our Live Match Centre (click here).

The high-flying hosts will head into this clash will an abundance of confidence as they remain the only undefeated Australian side in the competition following impressive victories over the Reds and Rebels.

Continue reading below…

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This week, Dan McKellar’s men stay in Canberra to face the struggling Highlanders, who looked very rusty in their 42-20 thumping at the hands of the Sharks in their season-opener at Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin last week.

As such, the Brumbies are favourites for this clash, which is understandable given they will field a largely unchanged side from what they conjured throughout the first two rounds of the competition.

However, McKellar has found enough room to inject three new players into the fray in the form of loosehead prop James Slipper, lock Darcy Swain and openside flanker Will Miller.

That trio have replaced Wallabies front rower Scott Sio and second rower Caderyn Neville, who have both been demoted to the bench, while tearaway flanker Tom Cusack has been dropped from the starting team completely.

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Prop Thomas Ross, loose forward Lachlan McCaffrey and midfielder Len Ikitau are the other fresh faces on the Brumbies’ bench.

Highlanders head coach Aaron Mauger, meanwhile, has mirrored his opposite and sprung a total of three changes to his run-on side.

An ankle injury has ruled promising lock Pari Pari Parkinson out of this fixture, allowing ex-Chiefs second rower Jesse Parete to make his first starting appearance for the Highlanders.

One-cap All Blacks flanker Dillon Hunt is also gone from the starting side, with his place at No. 6 taken by World Cup returnee Shannon Frizell, while rookie wing Tima Fainga’anuku has paid the price for an unconvincing debut, and replaced on the right wing by utility back Sio Tomkinson.

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A further three changes have been made on the bench, with Hunt joined by ex-Brumbies lock Jack Whetton and former Connacht and Ireland U20 prop Conan O’Donnell, who is in line to make his Highlanders debut.

In other news:

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J
JW 39 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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LONG READ 'England's blanket of despair feels overdone - they are not a team in freefall' 'England's blanket of despair feels overdone - they are not a team in freefall'
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