The ACT Brumbies turned the Japanese Sunwolves into frozen sushi on Saturday night, blasting their way to the top of the Australian conference in an 66-5Â demolition job at Canberra Stadium.
![Brumbies playmaker Christian Lealiifano had another solid game in his team's win against the Sunwolves.](/web/20160912115308im_/http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/p/6/b/a/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gp65vr.png/1464479538611.jpg)
In a match that was always billed as a mismatch, the competition newcomer Sunwolves were set a near impossible task on a brisk Canberra night and they were completely overpowered by a Brumbies side chasing a Super Rugby finals berth.
It was the Brumbies' highest score in more than a decade, going close to eclipsing the 68 points they scored against the Lions in 2004 and gave stars a chance to enhance their Wallabies hopes ahead of a three-Test series against England in June.
Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham did his best to open his post-match press conference in Japanese, saying the win was "oishī" which translate to "delicious".
It was that kind of night for the Brumbies, who were $1.01 favourites, with everything going to plan and Larkham even being able to pull off a different language afterwards.
"I think I said it was a pretty delicious game tonight," Larkham beamed after the match.
Asked what he found most delicious, Larkham said: "I just think the attitude was spot on, we had a great week and the boys enjoyed themselves. The first half was tough but we stuck it out and it opened up.
"The second half was just hte boys having fun and it looked like it was enjoyable. A couple of set moves coming off added to the enjoyment."
The 10 tries and one of the highest scores in Brumbies history lifted them to the top of the Australian conference, with just the second bonus-point win of the season helping them leap the NSW Waratahs into a guaranteed play-off spot.
Larkham said it puts them in a position to win the Super Rugby title after recovering from a mid-season slump to win their last three games in a row.
Super Rugby will go on a four-week break for the international Test window before teams return for a three-game race to the finals in July.
"We've got three games to go, we're on top of the Australian conference, it's a pretty simple formula from here," Larkham said.
"It will be interesting coming back after the Tests, we'll be very careful. But we want to finish off this tournament, we've put ourselves in a position where we can win it and we've got to finish it.
"...I don't think we were ever in a position where we weren't capable of winning it. We needed to win some games and needed some opposition teams to lose some games. But it's a simple equation now."
Nothing went right for the Sunwolves in their first trip to the capital, but they were courageous to the end and were finally rewarded when they scored an opportunist try with 10 minutes to go to get on the board.
The match did little to settle the questions rolling around in Wallabies coach Michael Cheika this week as he weighs up Test selection, with Tevita Kuridrani going into battle with Israel Folau for Australia's outside centre job and Christian Lealiifano is banging down the door to be the inside centre.
Lealiifano's kicking was outstanding, missing just two shots at goal and leading the Brumbies charge right until the end in a good reminder to Cheika of his abilities before going into Wallabies camp on Sunday.
Lealiifano and Kuridrani are the only Brumbies to play every minute of every game this season and deserve a chance on the Test stage, even though the nature of dominant nature of the game against the Sunwolves didn't allow them to stand out.
The Brumbies have 10 players in the 39-man Wallabies squad while the Waratahs have nine, reflecting their standing as the most dominant Australian teams.
There are four games left in the Super Rugby season but a mid-year four-week break will halt the Brumbies' momentum after getting their campaign back on track with a hat-trick of wins.
They have slightly a better run through the last three games of the regular season when compared to the Waratahs, matching up against the lowly-ranked Queensland Reds, Auckland Blues and Western Force.
The Waratahs play the Sunwolves, the Wellington Hurricanes and the Blues to finish their campaign.
Aidan Toua had his best game for the club, Moore scored a double for the first time in his career, Nigel Ah Wong was outstanding and also scored two while rookie Jordan Jackson-Hope scored his first Super Rugby try.
The Brumbies will also get injured duo Joseph Tomane and Matt Toomua after the June hiatus to strengthen the back line.
But the Sunwolves loomed as the dangerous speed hump in the Brumbies' season in a game everyone expected them to win and win well.
The visitors were always going to struggle to match the Brumbies' star-studded roster but they've shown in their first Super Rugby season that they have the talent to catch teams off guard.
The put up a fight for the first 10 minutes but that's where their resistance ended, and their cause wasn't helped when lock Hitoshi Ono was sin-binned before half-time for head-butting Rory Arnold.
The Brumbies didn't quite fire in the opening exchanges as they forced their hand and made too many mistakes.
But the inevitable happened when flanker David Pocock effected a turnover deep inside his own half and the Brumbies went almost the length of the field to find Scott Fardy lurking on the wing for the opener.
Less than five minutes later they were on the charge again, this time setting up a rolling maul train that was impossible to stop, with skipper Stephen Moore crashing over at the back.
It opened the floodgates and the Brumbies put themselves in a bonus-point position well before half-time when back-up scrumhalf Michael Dowsett turned on the afterburners to speed past the defence for his first try of the year.
Moore completed a double just three minutes after half-time and took the wind out of the Sunwolves' second-half hopes straight after the break.
"I got a lucky bounce there, [Larkham] told us we had to back up on the inside so I got lucky with that one," Moore said.
"We had a pretty strict game plan and we had to stick with that, it's a tough game. We're looking forward to getting into Wallabies camp and looking forward to playing with some of those Wallabies guys."
Toua scored an easy try, two-game rookie Jordan Jackson-Hope scored his first Super Rugby try and James Dargaville snatched an intercept to get across the line as well as the second-half rout ramped up.
Larkham cleared the bench with 20 minutes to go, taking off Pocock, Fardy and Moore among others as he threw his emerging players into the party.
Lausii Taliauli and Ah Wong finished the match in style, with the Brumbies entertaining until the dying stages to score their last try two minutes after the full-time siren.
ACT BRUMBIES 66 (Stephen Moore 2, Nigel Ah Wong 2, Scott Fardy, Michael Dowsett, Nigel Ah Wong, Aidan Toua, Jordan Jackson-Hope, James Dargaville, Lausii Taliauli tries; Christian Lealiifano 8 conversions) bt JAPAN SUNWOLVES 5 (Akihito Yamada try) at Canberra Stadium on Saturday night. Referee: Jaco van Heerden. Crowd: 10,479.