The Brumbies head to New Zealand looking for their biggest scalp of the Super Rugby Pacific season, battling the fourth-ranked Hurricanes in Wellington on Friday.
Instead of resting a swag of Wallabies like they did for their only other international trip, ending in a 35-17 loss to the Crusaders, they’ll be near full strength with only back-rower Pete Samu and centre Len Ikitau missing.
It leaves coach Stephen Larkham keen to gauge his side’s progress over their 7-1 start to the campaign, as they search for their second win of the season against a NZ side.
“We’ve got everyone available for the game, so there’s certainly some excitement,” he said.
“This is a test of where we’re at right now, we’ve got to make sure that our preparation is as good as it can be between now and kickoff.
“(NZ sides) are well coached, they’ve got really good continuity, there’s dangerous players across the park.
“They’ve probably got a little bit more depth and continuity than the Australian teams so the benchmark for us … is seeing how we can go over there and compete against these guys.”
The Hurricanes have cruised to a 3-0 record against Australian sides with an average winning margin of 16.3 points, but haven’t handled the Brumbies well in recent years having lost their last three meetings.
“If you look at our past record against them, we’ve prepped really well going into those games and that’s the reason why we’ve had some pretty good results,” Larkham said.
“So we want to make sure the work the boys do between now and the game is spot on, because it is going to be a very physical battle out there.
“We’ve spoken about a few things we want to implement … the boys took everything on board, came in with a lot of energy and we saw really good focus on the field.
“They’ve come in certainly with the right mindset this week.”
Hurricanes centres Jordie Barrett and Peter Umaga-Jensen will be a genuine test for the lesser-known ACT duo of Ollie Sapsford and Tamati Tua, while their veteran winger Julian Savea is bringing up his 150th club game.
It’s also a tantalising clash of halfbacks with Wallabies hopefuls Nic White and Ryan Lonergan tasked with looking after Hurricanes No.9 Cam Roigard, who’s jagged six tries in eight games this campaign.
By Alex Mitchell in Canberra
