Watch every second of Super Rugby Pacific live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nUnless a last-minute saviour comes in to salvage the club, only introduced in 2022, they will fold and the competition will shrink to 10 teams in 2027.<\/p>\n
But Pasifika (2-12) relished in the emotionally charged occasion at GIO Stadium on Saturday and snapped a 12-game losing streak to avoid a record-equalling 13th loss.<\/p>\n
The cellar dwellers’ victory wasn’t smooth sailing though, as the Brumbies led both on the scoreboard and numerically when barnstorming inside centre Faletoi Peni was handed a second yellow card and sent off in the second half.<\/p>\n
But the hosts couldn’t make the most of their opportunity and substitute Melani Matavao stormed over in the 73rd minute to claim victory.<\/p>\n
The Brumbies (7-7) needed a big bonus-point win to help them move as high as fourth on the ladder, but instead will have to settle for sixth.<\/p>\n
Their faltering lineout and a series of errors will be a concern for coach Stephen Larkham and the Brumbies now face the table-topping Hurricanes across the Tasman and must win to secure a berth in a qualifying final.<\/p>\n
After watching the visitors perform a traditional war dance, the Brumbies came out firing, and Rory Scott planted the ball over the line.<\/p>\n
Pasifika thought they hit back when Solomon Alaimalo crossed, but his try was chalked off because of a forward pass and the home team punished them with Tom Wright crashing over.<\/p>\n
Veteran James Slipper was handed a yellow card and the visitors capitalised through Patrick Pellegrini before the flyhalf wrestled over for his second to tie the halftime score at 14-all.<\/p>\n
The Brumbies re-established the lead when they shifted left and found Luke Reimer in the corner before Peni was marched after a high tackle on Andy Muirhead.<\/p>\n
ACT’s newly re-signed Klayton Thorn thought he had crossed, but a forward pass in the lead-up denied him a try before Matavao got on the receiving end of some slick passing to steal victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An undermanned Moana Pasifika have capped off their potential final match with a stirring victory, upsetting the finals-bound…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[58864,64,63,216832,760,85],"class_list":["post-703911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-act-brumbies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-moana-pasifika","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}