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The young guns the Brumbies are banking on after losing host of international stars

Australian schoolboy star Reesjan Pasitoa could be in line for significant game time in his debut Super Rugby campaign this season. (Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

The Brumbies are confident they can clinch another Australian conference title despite losing five Wallabies in the Super Rugby off-season.

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The Brumbies lost 157 test caps with the departures of David Pocock, Christian Lealiifano, Henry Speight, Rory Arnold and Sam Carter – and haven’t signed any Wallabies.

Coach Dan McKellar vowed to stick with his young guns coming through the ranks and remains “comfortable and confident” heading into the season opener on January 31.

Schalk Brits | Bringing home gold

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“To bring someone in externally to train them up on what’s expected of them on-field and off-field, there’s a whole lot of work there and you’re not necessarily going to get it right,” McKellar said.

“So we’ll back the young guys. They’re young guys but we’re backing them because they’re ready to go and they’ll be ready to go on the 31st.”

McKellar admitted his side won’t be filled with household names in round one against the Queensland Reds but said that had never stopped the Brumbies before.

“The Brumbies have always sort of relished that (underdog) tag, haven’t they,” McKellar said.

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“From day one in 1996, from one year to the next. We’ll just go about our work nice and quietly here in Canberra and be ready.”

The squad have spent the past 10 days jostling for positions in Newcastle after bushfire smoke forced their preseason from Canberra.

The most competitive spot is five-eighth, with rookies Bayley Kuenzle, Noah Lolesio and Reesjan Pasitoa battling for the No. 10 jersey.

“The boys are challenging each other and competing nicely which is what we want, I’ve got an idea in my head in terms of the direction we’ll go,” McKellar said.

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“We’ve got a bit of work to get through yet, no doubt there will be some bumps and bruises to come out of that … but yeah we’re getting closer.

“We’ve got to prioritised and understand that we’re not going to be perfect in round one, but no year you are.

“We just have to continue to build and get better as the weeks go by.”

AAP

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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