Unless a last-minute saviour comes in<\/a> to salvage the club, only introduced in 2022, they will fold and the competition will shrink to 10 teams in 2027.<\/p>\nBut Pasifika (2-12) relished the 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\u2019 victory wasn\u2019t 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\u2019t make the most of their opportunity and substitute Melani Matavao stormed over in the 73rd minute to claim victory.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWith all that had happened during the week, in terms of Moana going into liquidation, we [knew we wouldn\u2019t] see a lot of our group that we left behind,\u201d Umaga said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked a lot about our strong purpose of who we represent. We\u2019re representing our culture, our people, and we saw that come through in the end.<\/p>\n
\u201c[In all] the emotion of the last few months, today, I couldn\u2019t tell you what happened in those other games … I can tell you what happened today, and I\u2019m very proud of it. This one stands out.\u201d<\/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\u2019s 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":611852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-611851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}