Mistakes rock Brumbies

Catching fundamentals, especially from restarts, and a few missed tackles condemned the Brumbies to a 34-39 defeat by the Blues in Auckland on Friday night.

Brumbies coach Andy Friend said: "We knew coming here that we were going to be playing a team that would attack from anywhere, and everywhere, and they're very good at it and that's exactly what we got."

Restarts had let the side down badly where after scoring the inability to catch a ball let the Blues back into the game.

"There were some one-on-one defensive errors that hurt us, but that's footie. We were trying there but we weren't good enough," he said.

Captain Stephen Hoiles said the speed of the game was faster than what it had struck earlier but that had suited it more than hindered it, he said.

"We enjoy that, you could tell from the outset that we were trying to up the tempo ourselves. We were trying to play quick taps, we were trying to play that style of footie but it was just that 10 minutes in the second half really. That killed us," he said.

Hoiles said the side knew that if they left any hole for the Blues they would take it and they had tried to present a big defensive wall to them. There had been some frailties exposed by a strong ball-runner like Rene Ranger and the Blues made sides pay for that.

Another factor the Blues utilised was a desire, and Hoiles said he heard them saying it on the field, was to take a metre over the breakdown without using their hands.