Sorry for these being out of order but Freewebs isnt behaving. - Evie

9. 23rd April - Week 9 Super 12 2005 – BYE week

CHILDHOODMATES MAY BE FORCED TO GO THEIR SEPARATE WAYS

If Matt Henjak decides to move to Perth I’ll be very disappointed to see him go, but I’ll support him all the way.

We’ve been mates since we were kids, growing up a couple of houses down from each other in Queanbeyan. We played rugby league with the Queanbeyan Blues. We caught the same bus to school together.

As we got into our later years at school we were both halfbacks, but Matt was always in front of me. He was the First XV halfback at St Eddies and I was reserve.

When our rugby brought us to the same Super 12 team, our friendship just continued.

I’ve been very lucky to play outside George Gregan – you can’t put a price on that experience.

But further down the track it’s always been a dream of Matty and I to play some football together with him at No 9 and me at No 10.

If Matty goes to Perth that’s an opportunity we obviously won’t have at the Brumbies, and that’d be a disappointment.

More so, I’d also miss having him around as a mate and playing rugby with him every week.

As you’d expect Matt and I have spoken a bit about his decision, but we don’t get into too much detail.

I ask him how he’s going with the decision and I help him weigh up the pros and cons.

If I was in the same boat, I’d want to talk with Matt as I’d want to talk with my family.

At the end of the day though, it has to be Matt’s decision and he wouldn’t want his team-mates or friends pressuring him either way.

Opportunity is obviously the big lure for Matt, as I’m sure it is with most of the young guys who’ll go over.

Clyde Rathbone’s in a different boat, because he has all the opportunities he probably needs in Canberra.

He’s a starting player and a Wallaby, so I’d assume if he made a change it would be a lifestyle choice.

It could be that he just wants to satisfy his curiosity, to just go over to Western Australia and check things out.

If I was off contract I’d probably do the same thing. There’s no point closing the door on an option if you don’t have to.

You’d want to look at the set-up, see if their facilities are any good, see what the city is like, find out where the coach thinks you are going as a player.

If they’re able to sign some more experienced players it‘ll be more appealing. Young players want older guys to learn from so they can develop their games.

You have to be pretty open-minded and I think that’s what Clyde ant Matt are about in going to Perth this week.

I’ve heard guys in the press and on TV that a few guys from around the country have signed but haven’t made it public yet.

If that’s the case, I haven’t heard anything more than what’s on the news.

At the Brumbies the Perth recruitment drive hasn’t been the big issue.

We’ve got Matty and Rath doing talks, but they’ve gone away during the bye week and that’s been good. It hasn’t disrupted the team. When we’ve been together as a team all we’ve been worrying about what we’re doing and trying to improve our play.

Last weekend’s loss to NSW was very tough to take. We hate losing matches, especially against the Waratahs.

But that’s in the past now an we’ve got to look to play some better rugby to keep our finals hopes alive.

I think we’ll have a more consistent team in the next few weeks with a few guys like Stephen Larkham and Clyde coming back from injury.

When we have a more settled team don’t think we’ll have any trouble scoring tries.

And we’ll need them because bonus point wins are now essential for us to make the top four.

10. 30th April - Week 10 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Hurricanes

TIME TO STOP TRYING SO HARD TO BE A LARKHAM CLONE 

Having worn Stephen Larkham’s jersey for much of this season the talk about how much the Brumbies miss him has definitely registered with me.

People understandably say how great a player he is, how we play much better when he’s around, how we’d probably be winning a few more games with him at flyhalf.

I think in the last few weeks I’ve probably let a bit of that talk get to me.

I’ve tried to alter my game and play more like Bernie.

And we’ve probably organised our game plan a bit too much around me trying to copy his style.

This week I think the most important thing is for me to try and play my natural game.

I need to back myself to run the ball when I see opportunities.

I need to keep focused on the little things that I’ve built my game around, instead of worrying too much about the guys outside me.

My worst game of the season was definitely against the Waratahs.

I think I probably tried to do too much and tried to overthink things.

When I first started at No 10 in South Africa I was more instinctive.

This week I’m going to try to get back to that.

It’ll be interesting playing outside Matt Henjak tonight and a bit of a flashback to our days of playing nine and 10 for the Canberra Vikings.

Having him in the starting team has made training interesting to say the least.

Matty’s great in small doses, but he gets a bit too much.

I don’t think everyone realised how good we had it when Greegs was there, not just in terms of playing but having to put up with him on the field and off it.

We’ve got our own little ‘Matty Henjak time off’ period where he isn’t allowed to annoy us. The other day it was between 4pm and 6pm. It gave all a bit of peace we needed.

Obviously this match against the Hurricanes is the make or break point for us.

We’re disappointed that it’s come down to this, but that’s what we’re faced with.

Our preparation has been a bit different to recent weeks.

In the past month or so we’ve been saying things before the game that we need to do, but then we get out there we’re not doing them.

We’ve realised that talk is cheap.

This week we’re not going on about the individual things that we’ll need to do.

We should know them without being reminded.

Every player has to be accountable for their own performances. If they are, the team as a whole can execute the game plan.

With three weeks to go, bonus points could prove vital to us so we’re busting to score tries this week.

That being said, we’re not going to throw the ball around wildly.

We’ve got a specific plan for cracking the Hurricanes and we’ve got to keep our heads to do it. I’m looking forward to the clash with their No 10 Jimmy Gopperth and their inside centre Tana Umaga.

Gopperth is a guy no one would have heard much of before this year, but he’s shown himself to be a solid player who has directed his team well.

Outside him Umaga is one of the players who can really break open a game.

My first time against him was in 2003 when we last went to Wellington.

I’d heard all about Umaga for years so it was a pretty big occasion to line up against him in the centres.

That win was special for us because we hadn’t been travelling that well up to that point. We desperately needed the win to stay in the finals contention. Things have a habit of repeating themselves. Let’s hope we get the same result this time.

11. 7^th May - Week 11 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Chiefs

FINALS PROSPECTS MIGHT BE GONE BUT BRUMBIES STILL DOING IT FOR THE MELON

I learnt my lesson the hard way back in 2003 – you should never take on Owen Finegan.

A few of us were hanging out in his hotel room and Owen was giving me a bit of grief. He kept on bagging me so I threatened to toss stuff out of his suitcase.

He dared me to do it, so I did. I dumped everything out of his case onto the floor.

He got up and came after me and I did exactly what you’d expect when you’ve got 117kg of Finegan coming at you – I ran as fast as I could back to my room.

You’d think that would be the end of it, but not with Owen.

He got into my room and, even though I tried to stop him, he covered the placer and all my clothes with shaving cream.

He had the last laugh and since then I’ve known better than to take him on.

It’s fun now to see the younger guys make the same rookie mistake I did and try to get one over Owen.

They soon learn. Anyone who’s cheeky enough or stupid enough to take on Owen deserves what they get.

We’re all keen to send Owen out a winner. In fact we’ve dedicated the last two weeks to him.

Everything he wants, we do for him. If he wants to win touch footy at training, we let him win.

It’s the least we can do because the big fella has done so much for the Brumbies.

In sport you want to win and want to be competitive.

The disappointing thing for us this year is that we’re not showing what we’re capable of, injuries or not.

The last couple of weeks have been the toughest. Laurie Fisher and the team have copped a bit of criticism, but everyone gets that at times and you’ve got to deal with it.

You take the good with the bad and if things were going really well I’m sure Laurie would be bombarded with positive comments.

I think Laurie’s handling the pressure really well. He’s positive, upbeat and always looking forward.

We’re all excited to be back playing at Canberra Stadium and we’d love to see the fans turning out for us tonight.

The shift to inside centre should be good foe me and the team.

It’s good to give Sam Norton-Knight a chance at flyhalf and I’ll get a chance to run the ball a bit more and hopefully be more of a threat.

My back was really sore in the lead-up to last week’s game and it was touch and go whether I’d play, even during the warm-up.

Although I played the back pain restricted me a bit.

It’s improved a lot this week, but we’ve decided to have Sterling Mortlock keep kicking for goal.

I guess if Stirlo struggles we could always look to the new boy in the team Julian Salvi.

Even though he’s a forward, Jules loves to kick. And I tell you what, he’s confident.

When he was picked on the bench he came up to me and put his hand up to take over the kicking duties.

Apparently he said at the start of the year that ‘this year is Julian’s year’.

I’m not sure if he knew we had a bloke about the place called George Smith. But with confidence like that, we’ve got to assume he’s going to handle the step up to Super 12.

Speaking of young blokes who back themselves, I’m sure Benny Batger will have fun back at fullback this week.

I’m sure he’d like to keep this quiet but when he first got his Brumbies contract one of the first things he did was make himself up an email account under the name brumbben15. Well now he’s got his wish wearing the No 15 for the Brumbies . . . maybe we should have listened to him back then.

12. 14^th May - Week 12 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Reds

NO LOOKING BACKWARDS AS BRUMBIES AIM TO SEND FINEGAN OUT A WINNER

The change room at Canberra Stadium wasn’t a nice place to be after last weekend’s draw against the Chiefs.

Laurie Fisher was filthy with our second half performance and he gave us a big rev-up about it afterwards.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I certainly don’t need much reminding about how poor the result was.

We had them up by 14 points at different times of the match and just needed one more try to put them out of the game.

But like we’ve done so much this year, we did a few stupid things that let them back in.

It did feel good out in the backs in the first half, even if we didn’t have a lot of ball.

We made breaks, which hasn’t been that easy to do this season, and when we got through we put on a few tries.

The problem was we’d follow that good work up with letting them come back with a soft try. A bloke would switch off and a Chiefs player would run straight through the middle.

There was one stage when Jone Tawake put on a big hit and that should have been a good opportunity for us to set our line and hit them again.

But for whatever reason, one of their guys went through untouched to score.

Whatever happens this weekend I don’t think we need to make huge changes to our style of play before next season.

I’ve been saying it for weeks now, but to me the most frustrating thing about this season is the way we’ve let the little things wreck our performances.

Pretty much every game we’ve had periods where we’ve played really well.

There’s no real reason why we shouldn’t have been able to do that for 80 minutes.

Maybe it’s the inexperience factor.

Guys aren’t used to playing at that intensity for so long and have those little lapses, whether it’s missing a lineout call, missing a clean-out, or saying ‘oh I forgot that pattern’.

I guess the positive is guys are getting experience and in the future will be better for it. Certainly no one’s proud of the fact we’ve had a negative points differential for most of the season.

Other teams’ defensive lines have been pretty strong this year and we’ve struggled for the rhythm we’ve needed to crack them.

But from our point of view our defensive game hasn’t been a great highlight.

It’s not through a lack of effort, but we’ve switching on and off and you can’t get away with that.

We have one chance this weekend to get ourselves back in the black in terms of out for and against.

And there’s the added incentive of a possible finals place to do it.

We’re not kidding ourselves that we’re a good chance of making the finals.

We’d need a lot of results to go our way this weekend, and you’d have to be a very optimistic person to think we’d get through.

But, and it’s a big but, if results go our way we’ve got to look after our end.

That means fixing up our points differential and to do that we’ve probably got to win by 30 points or more.

Obviously that’s easier said than done.

If it was easy to rack up big scores this year we wouldn’t be in this situation.

But I think we showed last week, with the little bit of possession we had, we can really be dangerous in attack.

If we can do a better job of securing possession in the backs I think we’re a really good chance of winning well.

After missing out on our opportunity to send Owen Finegan away from Canberra on a winning note, we’re very keen to at least to have him finish his Super 12 career in style.

1. 26th Feb - Week 1 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Crusaders

CRUSADERS RIVALRY BRINGS OUT THE BEST IN THE BRUMBIES

I had no idea I had broken my hand in last weekend’s trial, even as I was having the x-ray after the game.
    It was one of those times when I thought having the scan would just prove that I’d done some tissue damage or something like that.
    So it came as a real shock when the Doc told me what had happened and that I’d be out of action for a few weeks. The major one being the fact I could miss three games at home.
    We talk about it often, but it’s really true that we love playing in front of a home crowd.
    I was particularly keen to play this weekend’s first match because it’s the Crusaders.
    They’re obviously long-time rivals for us. I picked up from my first encounters with them exactly what makes our rivalry so special. They are such a quality team and they give you few opportunities.
    You know that you have to take every one and I think that brings out the best in us.
    The Crusaders also have in their backline probably my greatest rival Daniel Carter.
    He’s playing at fullback this week, but he usually lines up against me at inside centre.
    He’s a similar style of player who’s regarded as probably New Zealand’s best up-and-coming player.
    He’s also a guy I’ve become mates with and I’ve already sent him a text message this week saying ‘good luck this week, you’ll need it’.
    As happens when you’re out with an injury, someone else gets a chance. This time it’s Gene Fairbanks, who joined us from Queensland this year. He hasn’t been here long, but he’s already picked up a pretty rough nickname ‘Yabbie’ – because his eyes are so close together.
    But nicknames aside I can tell you I’m a big fan of Geno. He’s a good ball-runner, he’s got good feet and he’s strong. Like me, he likes to step and he’s a good ball player.
    I don’t think there’ll be any problems with him fitting in there. Me being out also gives an opportunity to Stirlo to have a go at kicking.
    He’s been kicking pretty well lately, but having said that he hasn’t beaten me in any of the kick offs we’ve had this year.
   He hasn’t kicked in Super 12 for a while, but he’s been practising well and tinkering with a few things. He’s got a new run up that everyone’s going to see on Saturday night.
    It’s going to be tough watching from the sidelines this week, but I’m confident the boys will go well.
    Hopefully, I’ll be in action in two weeks time when we play the Stormers at home.
    Until then I’ll do what I can to keep my fitness up so I can return as ready as ever.

2. 4th March - Week 2 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Bulls

PERTH AN ATTRACTIVE OPTION BUT NO BETTER PLACE TO DEVELOP THAN BRUMBIES

It’s going to be a big challenge for the new Perth Super 14 team to be competitive from the start, but I’m hoping it is.
    I think John Mitchell will be fine as coach – just look at his success with the All Blacks.
    Up until that World Cup loss to Australia they were on track and playing really good rugby.
    But it will be tough for him to recruit a squad of top-quality players right away because the other Australian teams have signed up some of their top guys in the last few weeks.
    At the Brumbies we have a few guys who are still working out contracts and it would be very disappointing to see anyone go.
    But if someone has a chance for a starting spot elsewhere, you can’t blame them for looking at Perth. Matt Henjak is someone in that boat. He’s a good player and he should be starting in a Super 12 team. Anywhere else but here and he would be.
    He’s got a big decision to make and no one would blame him if he went.
    It is a gamble though for him or for anyone else to leave.
    As a young player you have to look at where you’re going to develop best and I think there’s no better place to develop than here, even if you are on the bench.
    Obviously it’s going to be good for young players short term to start, but whether that’s better for your development in the long-run…I’m not so sure.
    As a young player, I’d be concerned about playing for a new team because you can’t know how successful it’ll be. Because of their record of appearing in finals, the Brumbies have a tradition of getting players into gold jerseys early in their careers.
    It’d be a big call to leave that set-up.
    To this week’s game, tonight we’re going to see a tough battle between the packs. Up front I think the boys will have a point to prove.
    The Bulls love to maul, drive, pick and go.
    It’s what we might think is boring rugby, but in South Africa they love that style.
    Our forwards know exactly what type of challenge it will be and will be going out there to hopefully smash the Bulls pack around a bit.
    I guess the danger for us this week could be complacency.
    We’ve never lost to these guys at Canberra Stadium and they started the season badly with a loss to the Cats.
    But I’m pretty sure we wont fall into that trap, mainly because of all the injuries that have shaken us up.
    The new guys will be nervous and it’s important they get involved early.
    All of the rookies were fantastic last week.
    Just look at someone like Sam Norton-Knight – nickname Miami Vice because his head looks like it’s been squashed in a vice.
    Even though Sam was playing out of position on the wing, he gave it everything and didn’t look out of place against a top team. I think the efforts of guys like that showed how courageous the win was.
    It’s been a strange week with injuries and for once I’m not happy to have started a trend.
    I’m now joined on the injury list by Stirling Mortlock and Adam Ashley-Cooper.
    I don’t mind their company, but I’d much rather be out there playing.
    With Stirlo and Coops out that gives Joel Wilson and Lenny Beckett a chance in the starting team. And having George Gregan away in Europe means Matty Henjak gets a rare chance to start. He’s looking to have a big game and he was talking himself up in the media this week, saying how he loves to play a physical game and take on the big boys from Pretoria.
    Apparently he’s a world wrestling champion or something like that. Hopefully he has a big game out there.
    My hand seems to be healing well and I’m still on track to be playing in the first game of the South Africa trip.
    My hairdresser Shannon from Next Hair, has helped work a bit of a good luck symbol into my hair. I’ve now got a Chinese symbol bleached into the side of my head.
    It means ‘Health’ or ‘Healing’. Hopefully it’s doing the trick because I’m itching to be back playing.

3. 11th March - Week 3 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Stormers

LARKHAM GETS A KICK OUT OF SUCCESS AHEAD OF BRUMBIES’ STORMY ENCOUNTER

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised Steve ‘Bernie’ Larkham wants to have a kicking duel with me when I come back from injury next week.
He’s so impressed with his 3 from 3 against the Bulls last week he fancies himself as our number one kicker.
I’ve got to say it surprised me to see him nail those three kicks. He’d been hitting them pretty poorly at training in the lead up and I was thinking we were in trouble.
But he’s a guy who likes his chess and is a bit of a nerd. I think he takes a bit of a scientific approach to his kicking and, what can I say, it seemed to work for him.
Personally, I think it was the wind that blew the ball between the sticks for him.
Enough on Bernie’s goal kicking, because I don’t like giving him a rap for anything.
Tonight the boys are going to face a huge challenge against the Stormers. They might be South Africans, but they play a very different style to the forward-orientated Bulls and the Cats.
In some ways you could say they are similar to us, or some of the New Zealand teams that like using the ball.
Where they are distinctly different from just about everyone is in defence.
They use a bit of an unusual rushing defence which can really cause headaches.
They get up on you extremely quickly in the backs and with De Wet Barry and Marius Joubert they can present a really physical wall. I know the guys have been working hard this week to prepare for that and hopefully we can find a way to work around that Stormers tactic.
The big thing this week is attitude.
Last week there was a definite air of complacency in the way the boys took on the Bulls.
I think that’s why we failed to convert a heap of those opportunities.
Usually in a tight game against a better side you don’t throw those passes, but against the Bulls I think there was a bit of a belief that we should just turn up and win this.
It turned out to be a lot more physical and a lot closer than we’d imagined.
Against the Stormers there simply isn’t any room for complacency and I know it won’t creep in this week. We know we’re playing a top quality side with so many South African Test players.
They have a great backline, some good tight forwards and that excellent backrow.
Schalk Burger, Joe Van Niekerk and Luke Watson are very good at the breakdown and if you give them half a chance they’ll turn your ball over all night.
With someone like Breyton Paulse out there in the backs that can be a deadly turn for a team.
Paulse is so great in broken field running, he can really hurt you if his forwards have turned over the Brumbies ball and our line isn’t set.
That means the boys in the backs have to be much more accountable this week.
They have to be protective of the ball and make sure the Stormers loosies don’t get those opportunities. When the ball goes wide that’s our breakdown and we have to secure it.
While the Stormers backrow gets plenty of well-deserved respect, I’m pretty happy to back our boys in this tussle.
No one need to be told about their abilities of Owen Finegan and George Smith, and in the last two weeks Scotty Fava’s been showing to the rugby world what we’ve always known.
He may not be as well known internationally but as far as the team’s concerned, he always gets the respect he deserves.
He can be a bit annoying at times, but Scotty’s still a very, very good player.
Sam Norton-Knight, aka Miami, is going to face a big test at fullback tonight.
The Stormers will be putting him under a lot of pressure with high balls, but based on his efforts last week I think he’ll cope.
I will confess to be being a little surprised how well he played considering he was out of position in his first run-on match.
But his game proved Sam is a guy who can handle this level of competition even in a role he is not used to.
We’re off to South Africa in the very early hours of tomorrow and I’m very happy to be going with the boys.
I don’t think we’ll even have to touch wood about my chances of playing next week against the Cats.
This week I did two sessions with the boys, running, passing, catching. I’m having an x-ray today and I’m just about certain it’ll give me the green light for my return.
It’s been killing me watching from the sidelines. I can’t wait to be back out there.

4. 18th March - Week 4 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Cats

LARKHAM’S LOSS LEAVES RESPONSIBILITY TO THE REST

I’ve known for a while Steven Larkham wouldn’t be coming to South Africa, so it wasn’t a big shock to me when he told the team last week about his skin cancer surgery.
When I first found out I felt the same way as everyone else did. We were disappointed no to be having him around from a football point of view – who wouldn’t be?
But that was only a small concern for us.
Sure we enjoy playing the game, but it’s not the most impotanat thing in life.
All our worry was about Bernie’s health and hoping it would be sweet after the operation. It’s a bit of a mixed blessing for the team not having him this week.
When he’s in the sort of form he’s been this season we tend to rely on him a lot. Maybe a little too much. When we don’t have him, individually everyone has to take more responsibility to make our game plan work.
Bernie’s been a great help to me over the years, without me even knowing most of the time. My biggest problem and a goal to improve each year is my communication and ability to call the shots. Bernie is such a good communicator and he always knows what should be happening at any time.
He’s who I consider the best flyahlf in the world, so learning from him has been a great thing for me.
Playing at Ellis Park in Johannesburg this weekend is a big test for me after four weeks on the sidelines.
But strangely it feels like familiar territory.
The only time I’ve played there was in similar circumstances. Bernie had pulled out sick at the last minute of our tour in 2003 and I had to step into flyhalf.
It was a big, noisy crowd and there was the added issue of altitude to handle.
I don’t remember too much about the game, except for how disappointing it was to lose such a tight one.
The Cats are a very unusual team in that they are wildly unpredictable.
They don’t have a lot of structure to their game and that means that they can be brilliant or terrible. We’ve got to expect that at home they’ll be brilliant.
That means we’ll need to defend particularly well to win. A lot of their game revolves around flyhalf Andre Pretorius.
His kicking really guides them around the park. A key for us is to put a lot of pressure on him throughout the game.
You might not be aware but we’ve been taking exams this year to improve our knowledge of the roles we need to play in a game. It’s been great because as well as being tested on our own we have to know others.
I think that’s ahd a bit to d o with how everyone has coped with all the injuries this year.
The exams are written exams, something I though I’d left behind at school.
The good news is I’m doing better at these exams than I did back then.

5. 26th March - Week 5 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Sharks

FRAGILE FOES COULD TURN OUT TO BE A TASTY DISH – IF WE PLAY OUR CARDS RIGHT

In  some ways we, as a team, can relate to what’s gone on with the Sharks this week and the sacking of their coach, Kevin Putt.
The circumstances are obviously very different to ours last year when David Nucifora’s contract wasn’t renewed.
We were performing well and Favid although he was disappointed in the decision, was always going to continue in the role for the rest of the season.
But despite the differences, the thing we had in common is that, we had the challenge of responding to the turmoil on the field just a few days later.
The Brumbies are a very tight-knit group. We’re like a family in a lot of ways.
We had the goal of winning the Super 12 and even with the turmoil of that week, we maintained our focus on winning the Super 12.
We pulled together and went out against the Otago Highlanders and played some very good footy.
Now the question is whether the Sharks can do it against us this week,
I don’t know if they have the same kind of tight-knit culture and whether they are the sort of team that will pull together around this.
They’ve been under huge pressure recently with all the losses they’ve had.
I don’t speak a word of Afrikaans, so I haven’t been able to read the papers, but we’ve all picked up on the vibe here.
You talk to any of the fans and they’re the first ones to get stuck into the Sharks and bag them.
People have been saying ‘you’ll do it easy’ or ‘please don’t beat them by too much’.
It can’t be good for the confidence of the Sharks player and it’s a nice reminder about how good we have it in Canberra with a fan base that truly supports us.
The Sharks are always a dangerous side and the only differences between what they’ve done the last couple of weeks and what they’ve done in previous years are the little things.
They’re creating opportunities and the finishing touches aren’t there. This week those final things could stick.
What makes them more dangerous this week is that they obviously have more to play for.
When you’ve been under pressure, what you want to do is relieve it. The only way they’re going to be able to do that is to play well. They’ll give it everything because they are playing for positions, for respect and for the support in Durban.
For us, the mission is to exploit the fragility of the team early on.
Their confidence is down and we can make that work in our favour by scoring quick tries early on.
Just as importantly, we need to make sure they don’t have a sniff of scoring points on their own.
We need to capatilise on every mistake they make. We need to control pur possession.
If they don’t get a sniff they wont get the confidence. We can get them down in the dumps.
As we usually do when we’re on tour, we went out for a team dinner on Wednesday night.
The restaurant we went to was called Butcher Boys. I’m sure you can guess there was a lot of meat on the menu.
No surprise then that the choice of venue was a big hit with the fat boys of the team – the Front Rowers Union as they call themselves.
Those fellas sure can eat.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, we had to watch these haulking great lumps wolfing down ridiculous amounts of food.
It wasn’t pretty and thankfully they sat at their own tables so the rest of us could eat in peace.
Hopefully any members of the public who saw us didn’t connect the two groups.

7. 8th April - Week 7 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Highlanders

GITEAU PREPARED FOR MAIN ROLE AS STAGE IS SET FOR TONIGHT’S PLAY

You’d imagine it would be tough for me only finding out yesterday morning I’ll be starting in the No 10 jersey tonight.

But in reality I’ve known all along Bernie wasn’t going to be fit to play.

The whole ‘Larkham injury saga’ this week, and last week too if I remember correctly, was just a bit of media talk to keep his name in the papers.

You see, Bernie loves all the attention.

He likes to say he’s a quiet guy who doesn’t like the spotlight, but in truth he loves it. He’s the first to read the articles about him, so when he gates an injury he likes to keep the story alive.

So don’t worry about me being unprepared for this one, I’ve never had a doubt in my mind he wasn’t going to play. Okay now let’s get serious for a moment.

It is certainly difficult having the team’s preparation interrupted by injury and especially having to wait until the last moment to have it resolved.

But there’s good reason for giving Stephen Larkham any opportunity he can to prove his fitness. He has so much experience – almost 100 games – and does an amazing job steering the backline. When he’s there he’s the main guy and I play more of a supporting actor role.

I throw a few ideas at him, run off him a bit and don’t have to create things as much.

But tonight with him out, I’m the lead actor in that area of the game, and helping me along will be Gene Fairbanks.

Geno didn’t have a place on the bench last week, so when Bernie left the field injured Joel Wilson cam in at inside-centre and I moved in a spot.

Joel’s a very good, experienced player, but he’s more a running centre than a ball-player so our combination probably didn’t work as well as we’d have liked.

The style we like to play at the Brumbies has two ball-players in the inside backs. Usually it’s Bernie and me, this week it is Gene and me.

As far as the team’s attitude to the game goes, we’re treating this as I must win game.

We know that in 2002 the Brumbies lost four in a row and still made the final, but we’d prefer not to go down that path.

We’re putting pressure on ourselves tonight to win.

Mentally, I think we’re feeling pretty fresh, even though it’s been the longest tour the Brumbies have ever had.

Spending a few days this week in beautiful Queenstown definitely helped.

You may have heard that a few of the team got up to a bit of bungy jumping while we were there, I was there when the boys leapt out, but I didn’t jump myself.

Despite my friend Matty Henjak suggesting I was too scared to jump, the truth is I had a sore ankle and I couldn’t afford to have the bungy cord pulling on it.

I will say, though, I was very impressed with the boys’ efforts. Matty Henjak was very scared, close to crying even, but he got there and swapped roles with George Smith.

As the cable car moved out to the middle of the gorge, George was in a bit of a panic saying ‘take me back, take me back’.

But he jumped showing a lot more of an adventurous spirit than the other guys whose best effort at ‘Xtreme’ was a leisurely ride in some jet boat.

8. 16th April - Week 8 Super 12 2005 - Opposition: Waratahs

ALL QUIET ON THE SMS FRONT – TALK IS CHEAP WHEN HOME TOWN UNDER SIEGE

We’ve all heard Lote Tuqiri carrying on about it being “party time” tonight and how NSW represents “the establishment” and the Brumbies are the “new boys”.

As a team we haven’t paid too much attention to the media talk or banter that goes along with this game.

We don’t need to ramp the game up too much publicly. 

The feelings and the desire to win are genuine enough not to need any of that. 

Everyone in a Brumbies jumper tonight feels the same way about the Waratahs.

Guys like Bill Young have very personal reasons as to why they don’t like them, mainly because they didn’t get a chance when they were up playing in Sydney.

But regardless of where anyone comes from, we all feel the same desire to beat them and beat them well. Until you’re actually in the side you don’t really realise how intense the Waratahs v Brumbies rivalry is.

In my first year I didn’t really get it until the week of the match.

In the lead-up the guys started talking about what the clash meant, about how this team had formed something special here in Canberra and the sacrifices many of them made along the way.

Quickly I found myself embracing the rivalry and I have enjoyed it ever since. I’ve definitely thought about sending a few text messages and getting into a few of the Waratahs boys this week.

I gave Peter Hewat some grief after they lost to the Crusaders, asking him if he was going bald. That got him going a bit.

But I haven’t got into it this week, I think it’s such a big game for us so I have been treating it very seriously. 

So not one text message has been sent from my phone this week…at least to any of the Waratah boys. 

In Super 12 there’s usually a couple of must-win games, depending on how your form is going.

Tonight is Must Win with a capital “M W’.

If we go down we lost the ability to control our destiny. We’d need to rely on other results going our way.

The attitude in the team is amazingly positive, even after three losses.

Being home in Canberra is a large reason why everyone is up.

We get to sleep in our own beds, eat at our own homes. And we get to play in front of a packed Canberra Stadium crowd. 

We’re also positive because we know from experience that we can get through rough times.

A lot of the boys were around in 2002 when we lost four in a row and still managed to make the final. We’ve lost three in a row this time anf the boys remain positive and aren’t dwelling on things that have gone wrong.

We’re not getting ahead of ourselves, but we’re aware of the huge boost a win tonight would give us.

We could go into the bye week break with a lot of confidence.

But achieving that means every guy in every position has to step up tonight.

If we win or lose I don’t feel it is my fault but at No 10 you do have to have control, and be accountable for how your team performs.

It’s a big responsibility, but having known all week that I’m playing there I’m really confident.

Lining up against Lachlan Mackay will be a challenge.

He’s a bigger bloke and can take on the line a lot more than Shaun Berne would. He’s physical and because he is a big flyhalf he likes to have a presence.

It was good news for us to get Mark Gerrard on board for a couple more years. He’s one of the guys around whom we want to build out future team.

He had some interest from Perth, but said himself that after all the Brumbies had given him, he’d be stupid to leave.
 
We’re all expecting a big game from Gerrardo this week.

He’s probably the most critical person of himself in the team. If we’d won those close games he and others wouldn’t be nearly as hard on themselves.

He’s a confidence player, but like the rest of us I don’t think he’ll have any problems getting up for the Waratahs.

During Super 12 2004, Matt found the time to write columns for The Canberra Times, detailing life on the road and training and anything else... I haven't been able to find any links to these articles but I have instead typed them up.

1. Feb. 21 2004 - Week 1 - Super 12 – Opposition: Auckland Blues

LOTS OF CHANGES, BUT FOR ME IT STAYS THE SAME: STILL AT CENTRE, STILL NO RESPECT

Matt Giteau

        While there’s been lots of changes at the Brumbies in the last six months, for me most things have stayed the same.

   Not only am I playing inside centre again, but I’m still the youngest in the 22-man squad.

   In the Wallabies, being the youngest means you have to babysit a stuffed Wallaby.

   But in the Brumbies the only tradition that comes with it just seems to be getting no respect from the old guys.

    But I don’t mind it too much. I’m used to it now.

    It has been a pretty interesting week with all the reshuffles going on in the backline.

    First I found out about Bernie (Stephen Larkham) moving into five-eighth on Monday, when the coaches told me to train at inside centre.

    I had a fair inkling the move was on beforehand though.

    The trials were all pretty disappointing and there were a few things the coaches obviously weren’t all that happy about.

    When you aren’t playing all that well it’s hard for any team to get any rhythm going or getting new combinations to work.

     So we basically just ran out of time to make it work.

     While it is on the back burner now, I do think the plan could have worked if we had a few more weeks to fine-tune it, but for this first game it was definitely the best thing to have Steve back there.

     Steve knows the way Auckland players, like Carlos Spencer, play and it’s important to us to get off to a good start.

     From my point of view I’m happy to be back at inside centre. Just to be in the team is the most important thing for me.

    Tonight’s going to be a huge challenge, obviously. I’m looking forward to lining up against Sam Tuitupou, who I played against when I was in the Australian under-21s.

    He’s a pretty tough customer, who runs straight and hard.

    I don’t think I’ll be able to put too many big hits on him, but hopefully I can put him on the ground without too many problems.

    We’re all feeling pretty good about tonight’s match and we’ve put the disappointing trip to New Zealand behind us.

    It wasn’t the best trip, because of the poor results but there were still plenty of fun moments.

    We got into a bit of indoor cricket and that was a bit of an eye-opener as to the skills, or lack of, among some of the team.

   I won’t mention who the strugglers were, but I can say that the star Brumbies indoor cricketer is Joel Wilson.

   The boy from Mudgee really found some good form with the bat and could bowl pretty well too.

   George Gregan has a good cricketing background and took some wickets but, surprisingly, he struggled a bit with the bat.

   I was a bit inconsistent too but when the big wickets needed to be taken I was there to do it.

   Bernie was the one bloke everyone wanted to take out. He’s cocky as anything and does stuff like bat left-handed when he’s really a right-hander.

   I’m sure tonight, though he’ll kick with his right foot and hopefully weave some that match-winning magic of his.

2. Feb. 27 2004 – Week 2 – Super 12 – Oppos: Cats

BERNIE’S ACROBATICS GIVE THE BOYS PLENTY TO TALK ABOUT

Matt Giteau

    Last Saturday was a massive night for some of the youngest guys in the squad who made their debuts in our win against the Auckland Blues.

    Guy Sheperdson, Clyde Rathbone, David Palavi and Nic Henderson all got on for the first time, while Mark Chisholm had his run-on debut- and already you can notice the difference with some of them now they have a Brumbies cap next to their names.

   Chiz and Shep in particular are pretty pleased with themselves and have been strutting around the place this week.

   I, on the other hand, am a veteran compared with those blokes and I’ve been walking around with my stock-standard strut.

   I’d love to say Steve Larkham had been talking it up all week about the spectacular try he scored jumping over Doug Howlett last Saturday. But I must admit Bernie’s not that sort of a bloke and really hasn’t had much to say about it.

    Everyone else was pretty impressed, though, and a few different descriptions of his form in the air have been offered up. Joel Wilson said he looked like the ink tube out of a biro when you fire it out with a rubber band (not that I ever got up to that sort of mischief when I was at school).

    I thought he just looked like a twig flying through the air.

    While we didn’t think Bernie had that much leap in him, it was pretty typical of him to risk falling on his head or breaking his shoulder on the way down.

    He’s never really been into that self-preservation stuff when he plays rugby.

    I haven’t received any warnings about my own leap in the in-goal when I scored our last try of the night. I guess I could have done some damage to myself, but I was just so happy we’d sealed the game that after I’d scampered down the touchline I just had to do the big dive.

   Clyde Rathbone did well to force the fumble from Rupeni Caucaunibuca and I should really thank him for gifting me that five-pointer.

    But I don’t think I will.

    Tonight’s game against the Cats is a really big one for us, despite the fact they’ve never won in Canberra.

    We have to forget about the Blues game and focus on playing well or we’ll come crashing back to earth.

    Just a couple of minutes after we’d celebrated our win in the change rooms last week with a rendition of the team song, our coach David Nucifora was already telling us we needed to look forward to tonight.

    Everyone has listened well to that and we’re aware we have to turn up focused to pull off another win.

    The Cats have strong centres, some quick outside backs and an absolutely massive forward pack.

    I’ve already come up with my own novel game plan – I’m going to spend all night running straight into a couple of their 120kg-plus props.

   Hopefully I’ll still be alive to tell you about it next week.

RESULT vs. Cats: 68-28 BRUMBIES

3. Mar. 5 2004 – Week 3 – Super 12 – Oppos: Sharks

FORGET THE 10 TRIES AGAINST THE CATS, WE STILL NEED TO TRY HARDER

Matt Giteau

    Sure it was a lot of fun for the team to score 10 tries against the Cats last week, but we weren’t particularly happy with how we played.

    We let them secure that bonus point when we relaxed in the second half and that’s really not good enough. Against the Sharks we need to play with a lot more discipline because they’ll be a better structured team than the Cats.

    As you know there’s not much of me, so on Saturday night I’ll do my best to keep clear of Butch James. We know he is a big hitter who likes to come up on you early in defence and really put a good shot on.

    We are aware of that tactic and hopefully we can find a way to get some advantage from it. We also know from last year when we lost to the Sharks that they are a team capable of anything, they don’t like losing and in the past they’ve bounced back well after big losses- like last week against the Waratahs.

    Don’t worry, we’re not taking anything for granted tomorrow.

    I am sure you are well aware that Chiz scored a couple of tries for us against the Cats last Friday. I must admit they were pretty good for a forward, especially a lock. But Chiz just hasn’t shut up about them this week. We’re all supposed to sit down and review the tapes of the match to look for areas we need to improve on before the next game.

    Chiz has spent all his time rewinding the video so he can watch his own tries over and over again.

    He even called me in the other day to show off and kept saying ‘Hey Gits, have a look at this have a look at this’. I’m sure he would’ve kept on going with it all day, but Bill Young walked in. While Chiz doesn’t mind talking it up around the young guys he’s a bit scared to do it when the older blokes are around.

    Whenever I can I like to keep up to date with  some of the competitions that go on between the boys when they’re off the training paddock. This week it was a pie-eating contest that caught my attention. Radike Samo and Tamaiti Horua went head to head to see who could scoff the most pastry. I can report that Tamaiti is by far the best pie-eater in the Brumbies squad.

    DK pulled out after a couple, while Tamaiti kicked on and put away about five.

    Looking at Tamaiti, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d knocked off 20.

    Finally, I must confess I was late getting my column in to the Canberra Times yesterday.

    It was time for a new haircut and before I knew it, three hours of my day off had been spent in the chair.

    Unlike last year though you won’t be seeing any outrageous hair colouring from me. I’ve decided to tone it down  this season as a sign of my increasing maturity.

RESULT vs. Sharks: 23-20 BRUMBIES