Brumbies look to save Australian blushes in Super Rugby playoffs

MELBOURNE : The ACT Brumbies were the only Australian team to lock up a top-four spot in Super Rugby Pacific and are again the nation's best hope of stopping a New Zealand sweep of the quarter-finals starting on Friday.

By the time the Brumbies host the Wellington Hurricanes in Canberra on Saturday in a repeat of last year's quarter-final, they could well be Australia's last team standing.

The New South Wales Waratahs and Queensland Reds will have to defy history by winning a first playoff in New Zealand when they meet the Auckland Blues and Waikato Chiefs respectively.

Fijian Drua, meanwhile, face the toughest assignment in the competition on Saturday when they make their post-season debut against the Canterbury Crusaders in Christchurch where the champions have won all 27 playoffs dating back to 1996.

The match-ups will likely leave the Brumbies looking to save face for Australian rugby which has not produced a winner in the provincial competition since Michael Cheika's Waratahs in 2014.

The only one of the country's five teams to finish the regular season with a winning record this year, the Brumbies will bid to defy the Hurricanes again after beating them 35-25 in last year's quarter-finals.

But the path to the semi-finals is anything but assured, with captain-prop Allan Alaalatoa sidelined with injury and the Hurricanes full of beans after a comeback win over the Crusaders in Wellington last weekend.

"Bringing momentum into the quarter-finals was really important for us and getting our performance to where we wanted it last week was key," said the Hurricanes' outgoing head coach Jason Holland.

"Heading to Canberra, our focus is to continue to build on some of the parts of our game that went really well for us against the