Allan Alaalatoa is back. The ACT Brumbies, who have spent the past fortnight watching their season slide in a way they have not had to confront for the better part of a decade, will reintroduce their captain and Wallabies tighthead this weekend against a Western Force side currently outperforming everyone's expectations of them.
Alaalatoa missed the past two matches with concussion, and his absence coincided with losses to the Queensland Reds and the Hurricanes. Combined with the earlier defeat that started the slide, those reverses have given the Brumbies their first three-match losing streak since 2018 and dropped them to sixth on the Super Rugby Pacific ladder. They face a Western Force team in form, sitting tenth but trending sharply upwards, at Canberra Stadium on Saturday night.
For flanker Toby Macpherson, the return of his captain changes the conversation in the room.
"Massive boost," Macpherson said. "I mean, just from a leadership role particularly, he's done a lot in the game and he understands the game really well."
The leadership point is what bites hardest in a team trying to stop its season tipping over. Alaalatoa is not just the Brumbies' best front-rower, he is the calibration mechanism for an awful lot of what the team does in tight situations. Set-piece detail, breakdown discipline, scrum strategy and the small communication wins that pull a side through a tense second half are all easier when he is on the field. The Brumbies have, on paper, replacement props who can hold their own. They do not have a replacement Alaalatoa.
Macpherson was equally clear about what the captain offers when the whistle is blown.
"Just his impact around the field, he's a big man, his collisions are good and I think everyone's really excited to have him back on the paddock this week," Macpherson said.
"He's raring to go, that's for sure."
That kind of impact has been thin on the ground for Canberra of late. The Brumbies have looked solid in patches but have leaked momentum at unforgiving moments, and several of their late-game struggles in the past three weeks have come at scrum time and at the breakdown, exactly the areas where Alaalatoa's presence is most felt.
The news on the rest of the squad is more mixed. Charlie Cale, whose strong start to the season had drawn Test selection chatter and made him one of the breakout names of Australia's early autumn rugby cycle, will not play this weekend after suffering a shoulder injury. Loose forward Luke Reimer, another of the Brumbies' younger drivers, will also miss out with concussion. Both absences leave Stephen Larkham short of cover in the back row at exactly the wrong time.
Western Force will not make life easy. Coached by Simon Cron and built around the playmaking of fly-half Ben Donaldson, Force have a back three that includes recently re-signed Wallaby Dylan Pietsch and former NRL star Zac Lomax. They are unlikely to be intimidated by a Brumbies side trying to remember how to win. If anything, the absence of Cale and Reimer offers Cron a clear plan, target the breakdown and force Canberra to win their possession the hard way.
For the Brumbies, the equation is simpler. Get Alaalatoa back on the field. Steady the scrum. Win the small fights. End the losing streak before it becomes the season-defining narrative for a team that, six weeks ago, was still being talked about as a likely top-four finisher. The captain is back. The rest, as Macpherson made clear, will follow from there.
