Brumbies five-eighth Matt Toomua believes the fact the Hurricanes still have a faint sniff of making the Super Rugby finals will make them all the more dangerous at Canberra Stadium on Friday night.
The ninth-placed Hurricanes can still make the top six if they win every one of their remaining four matches.
And the Wellington-based side has a sterling history of late-season form.
The Hurricanes won their last four games in 2012, four from their last five in 2010 and five from their last six round games in 2009.
Even in 2011 they managed a respectable two wins and a draw from their final four matches.
As a quirky stat, the previous time the Hurricanes lost the fourth last game of their regular season was in 2006 against the Brumbies at Canberra Stadium – their only loss in the last five rounds that year.
Placed in a similar backs-against-the-wall position each year to what they are now, Toomua believes the Hurricanes’ desperation will make them much harder to handle.
“You’d think so. They’ll obviously leave nothing on the park,” he said.
The Brumbies are far from assured a finals spot themselves and will have to win at least two of their remaining three matches to lock down a finals berth.
“We had a slip against a team we should have beaten, the Kings, a while ago. This week we want to win and need to win,” Toomua said.
Toomua said he could see similarities between this Hurricanes side and the surprise-packet Blues team that ambushed their finals hopes at Canberra Stadium in the final round of 2012.
“Yeah definitely. The Hurricanes and Blues play quite similar,” he said.
“With most Kiwi teams you can have a slight guess that their back three is going to be ridiculously strong.
“You’re going to have good kicking No.10s and a strong forward pack. They play with a lot of flair and a lot of offloads.
“Individually they are athletically better than most teams.”
The Hurricanes will be buoyed by the return of their skipper Conrad Smith, who has been cleared of concussion suffered in his side’s loss to the Bulls at Pretoria on May 4.