They’ve been thousands of kilometres away from a dramatic week in Canberra but a win in Bloemfontein was as critical as any other event in the Brumbies’ last seven days.
Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham said a complete focus on their on-field mission had been essential on their way to a 25-18 win over the Cheetahs.
“There’s been a bit of turmoil back home but hopefully that’ll be sorted out next week when we get back,” he said.
“Internally we just had 100 % focus here on the game.”
“It wasn’t clean for either side it wasn’t clean and there was a lot of physicality out there.
“The biggest thing we’ll take out of this is just the effort that the boys put in on game day.”
Flanker David Pcock continued to cement his influence in a match that Larkham rated among his greatest ever.
“I thought Dave Pocock had a tremendous game, one of the best games I’ve seen him have, both over the breakdown and just his contact work in defence was outstanding tonight,” he said.
“Across the park it was a contest.
“It was a contest when they had the ball and I think particularly when we had the ball there’ll be aspects of that we’re not we weren’t happy with.
“I think they beat us to the ball a couple of times there but defensively they didn’t really get a roll on, they didn’t get too many phases because our work at the breakdown was good.”
The victory gives a Brumbies a 50/50 record from their South Africa trip, as well as a win over the Force in Perth, as they head into a clash with the Chiefs in Canberra next weekend.
Co-captain Stephen Moore said bouncing back from defeat in Newlands was critical for the side.
“We were really disappointed with how we played last week so to come away from our tour with two wins out of three we’ll probably take that.”
“We saw how well they (the Chiefs) played this morning so it’s going to be important for us to recover well and play really well there before the bye."
