SYDNEY, July 5 (Reuters) – ACT Brumbies coach Jake White is
confident his team can buck their poor Super Rugby record in
Sydney and beat the New South Wales Waratahs this weekend to all
but seal the Australian conference title.
The twice champion Brumbies have never won at the Olympic
stadium and triumphed just once in Sydney but will have high
hopes of overcoming a Waratahs team which has lost their last
six matches on Saturday.
Former Springboks coach White, who has turned the ailing
province around this season, was on Thursday able to name an
unchanged side from that which beat the Western Force on the
back of four first-half tries last weekend.
“At this stage there’s still a lot of rugby left for us,
potentially we still have four games to play so in that regard
it’s great to have been able to keep the same team together,”
White said in a news release.
“To be fair to those boys they had a very strong first half
last Saturday night.”
The Brumbies are five points ahead of the Super Rugby
champion Queensland Reds going into the last two weeks of the
competition and host the ailing Auckland Blues in their final
match next weekend.
Despite the Waratahs having long fallen out of the playoff
picture, White will be aware that it was a core of their players
who helped Australia to a 3-0 series sweep over Six Nations
champions Wales last month.
“They’ve got 1069 Super Rugby caps and probably 400 Test
caps, 11 Wallabies and they are a formidable opponent,” he
added.
“Even though they’ve made some changes to their halves, they
still have Wallabies on the bench and will pose a massive
challenge for us.
Continued…
