It wasn't pretty, some would even say ugly at times, but Pirates did enough to overcome a tenacious and plucky Scone in their Central North season opener at Ken Chillingworth Oval on Saturday.
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The Brumbies really took it to them especially at the breakdown, and it wasn't probably until midway through the second half that they were able to assert some real dominance on the contest.
They went on to get the win 31-7, but as co-coach Evan Kellow acknowledged post-match there is "a lot of work to do".
"We just didn't execute well for a lot of that game in the things we wanted to, but we did enough," he said.
Give the Brumbies their dues, they showed some great pluck in defence and really made life tough for Pirates at the breakdown.
"They just really hit the breakdown, flooded the breakdown with numbers and it's just probably not something we were ready for and it just took us a long time to get our head around how to combat it," Kellow said.
He had said heading in he expected the Brumbies to be a much tougher test than they have been the last couple of seasons and they showed that from the opening whistle, really putting Pirates under some good pressure.
But the home side were able to repel their raids and were first to score, captain Conrad Starr showing good hands to pick up winger Saimouli Lewaya's basketball pass and cross in the corner in the 15th minute.
Five minutes later Jayden Kitchener-Waters doubled their advantage, the five-eighth finishing off what was one of their best passages of play with the forwards and backs interchanging nicely as they shifted the play from the right across to the left in one sweeping movement.
But the Brumbies kept coming and were ruled to have been held up just before the game was halted for about 10 minutes for an intruder on the ground.
Pirates looked to have extended their lead right on half-time but what would have been Jack Edwards' first try in Pirates colours was disallowed, leaving the score 12-nil at half-time.
That became 12-7 six minutes into the second half with Paul McTaggart finishing off a brilliant breakout from the Brumbies from inside their half.
But Pirates hit back with two tries in five minutes, and looked like they were going to kick away with it.
Kellow admitted he thought they would.
But instead their game descended into a constant stream of dropped balls, turnovers and loose passes and passes not finding their target. They were guilty of that too at times in the first half.
"We were just really clunky around the field, just having a few new players in certain areas," he said.
"[And] We didn't get the ball wide enough when we needed to and when we did we probably turned it over too much."
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But it wasn't all negative.
Kellow was really happy with the way they "evolved throughout the game" and worked out how to counter the Brumbies' pressure at the breakdown.
"We talked about a bit of a plan at half-time and they executed on that pretty well," he said.
The set piece was also great, particularly the scrum. They really had it over the Brumbies there.
"We'll take the good bits out of that and work hard on the bits we need to," Kellow said.
Among the 'good bits' was the efforts of Starr and Nick McCrohan. They were "huge" for them.
"They did a massive job not only cleaning up a lot of the loose ball but just really getting us going forward," he said.
All of the front row - starting and off the bench - were also great for them.
It was a great start to the season for the club with the women and second grade also getting up.
