The Brumbies have paid a dear after toppling former coach Jake White’s Sharks at the weekend.
Star wing Joe Tomane’s Super Rugby season may have come to an end, the result of a fractured cheekbone suffered in the 16-9 top-of-the-table win in Canberra.
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Tomane will be sidelined for at least two months, also ruling him out of Australia’s three-Test series against France next month.
The Brumbies still hold out hope that the in-form flyer, who clashed heads with teammate Ben Alexander, could make his way back in time for the play-offs.
“It’s not displaced too badly,” Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham told the Australian Associated Press.
“At this stage it doesn’t need surgery. But we’re not 100 percent [sure].”
The silver lining for last year’s runners-up is the imminent return of dynamic wing Henry Speight.
The competition’s top two teams produced an ugly contest that included 93 kicks in general play and just one try – the result of two White-patterned teams religiously stick to their game plans.
“It was never going to be pretty,” the former Brumbies coach, White said.
“I knew that. I know how the Brumbies play.”
In a perfect irony, the Brumbies’ reward for winning was dropping to third on the overall standings as the defending champion Chiefs (35) moved to second with their bonus-point 32-20 win over the Blues.
Director of coaching Laurie Fisher defended their tactics in a wet Canberra and praised big-kicking Jesse Mogg for being a rock at fullback.
“We could have run a lot of ball, and we wouldn’t be sitting here victors,” Fisher said.
“It was only ever going to be about the result, not the aesthetics of the game given the nature of the two sides and the conditions.”