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Brumbies fight back to beat Reds but lose Wallaby to injury
By AAP
The ACT Brumbies have retained Australian bragging rights with a statement 39-26 comeback win over the Queensland Reds to surge into the Super Rugby Pacific’s all-important top four.
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The Brumbies overcame a 14-0 first-half deficit to secure a fourth straight win over Queensland, and third in a row at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium, to leapfrog the Reds into third spot.
The spirited victory came after Reds mentor and want-to-be Wallabies coach Les Kiss delivered a spectacular halftime spray to his team for giving up their 14-point lead.
“Didn’t he go off at halftime, Les Kiss?” said Wallabies great Tim Horan in Stan commentary.
The Reds had fired out of the blocks to charge to a 14-0 lead.
Wallabies centre Hunter Paisami opened the scoring with an early chip-and-chase effort, before hooker Richie Asiata barged over to double the lead.
Dual John Eales Medallist Rob Valetini almost single-handedly dragged the Brumbies back into the contest with a solo try in the 22nd minute.
The classy back-rower seemed to inspire the Brumbies, who dominated the rest of the half as his side wrestled the lead with further bulldozing tries to Tuaina Taii Tualima and Allan Alaalatoa.
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A try-scoring double in the opening 15 minutes of the second half to Brumbies hooker Billy Pollard sealed the Reds’ fate.
Alaalatoa praised his teammates for “staying in the grind”.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game,” he said.
“The conditions, a bit of humidity, wet, yeah, we just wanted to get in the washing machine and stay in it and just work hard for each other, which I thought we did.
“We spoke about it during the week. We knew what we were coming up against this week.
“So mentally we were in the right spot tonight and it’s just about gaining that consistency for the rest of the season.”
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Pollard hopes the Brumbies’ win and performance has set the standard.
“Defensively, we were really strong,” he said.
“Territory was a big one, you know. I’ve spoken a lot about conditions, every time we felt like we got down that end, attacking wise, we came away with points.
“It felt like we were just building some pressure on the Reds and that’s what we want to do.
“We want to sustain that and not get bored of doing it, so I think we got a bit of wind in our sails off the back of that.”
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