It was the moment the Brumbies had to realise they have a problem. No matter how much work they’d been doing in the week leading up to the match with the Blues, trying to find the improvements they desperately needed to spark their trans-Tasman campaign, it had to have dawned on them that something bigger was an issue. Fourteen minutes in, having pinched a Blues lineout throw on halfway just a minute earlier, the Brumbies had a lineout throw roughly 30 metres out from their line on the south-western corner of Eden Park. Lock Darcy Swain jumped at number four in a five-man set-up, lifted quickly and cleanly by Allan Ala’alatoa behind him and ex-Western Force backrower Henry Stowers in front. Swain took the somewhat-contested ball at the top and was looking to initiate transfer of the ball to Tom Cusack as he came back to earth. Simultaneously as Swain’s feet hit the ground, the lifters and Nick Frost had already formed the maul around Cusack as he took the ball cleanly. The maul edg...
