McKellar: Win on track for Chiefs clash

Canberra: Brumbies coach Dan McKellar says his side needs to keep adding to their early season momentum after a 3926 win over the Rebels on Friday night.

The victory was their first over the Rebels since 2017, withe a four-try-to-one first half setting up a comfortable win. Melbourne clawed their way back in the second half, narrowing a 24-point hole just before half-time to a 10-point gap in the final 15 minutes.

The result also meant the Brumbies clinched their first two matches for the first time since 2016 after patchy starts to recent seasons.

A two from two record puts them at the top of the Australian sides and McKellar said he wanted to see his side continue to build on that.

“It’s a good start and we’re at home and we knew that it was important first three games at home, then we go to Hamilton and have a week off so we’ve just got to keep building momentum,” he said.

“We scored some really nice tries and played some really smart football at times.”

For a Melbourne side hunting for redemption after last week’s Japanese loss, Friday night had more positives but still left them with plenty of head-scratching to do.

Rebels coach Dave Wessels was optimistic post-match, pleased with his side’s ability to stay in the game late.

‘We were obviously disappointed to lose, we just had a really poor start,” he said.

“It was hard to fight our way back from that but we never stopped trying.

“We took a bonus point away from them in the back end of the game which I think at the end of the season is going to matter.

“Little things like that, we’ll take heart from those sort of things. We get to go home now with what I think is a little bit of rhythm and confidence.”