Plus500 Brumbies winger James Dargaville believes that dominance at the set-piece will be vital if the Brumbies are going to come away with a win against the Hurricanes in their Super Rugby Quarter final.
Speaking ahead of the sudden-death clash at GIO Stadium on Friday night, Dargaville stressed the importance getting their set-piece right against the competition’s in-form team.
“The set-piece will be a serious battle,” he said.
“Having a good set-piece mean you can take a bit of counter-attack out of their game so if we kick well, exit well and make our tackles then it will be a good contest.”
The winger said the lessons learnt from their 56-21 loss at the hands of the ‘Canes earlier in the year had put the Brumbies in good stead as they look to fly the flag for Australian teams at the business end of the season.
The ACT side had led at half-time but a yellow card to Wharenui Hawera saw Wellington take control and pile on 42 unanswered points in the second stanza.
“We had a few issues early on in our last game [against Wellington] and we leaked three quick tries due to not being able to keep the pressure at set-piece time,” Dargaville commented.
“But when we did find a bit of parity we were able to score some really good tries so if we can keep fifteen men on the field and make the most of the opportunities they give us I think we can go a long way to winning this game.
“I think we saw on the weekend when we lost Tomas [Cubelli] playing with fourteen men against a Kiwi team really does handicap you a lot so I think the discipline will be a huge factor. That was certainly a lesson learnt from those two games.”
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