The team's tightrope run to the Super14 finals will stretch into the final week of the home-and-away season following last night's 37-15 win over the Auckland Blues.

Heading into their final-round blockbuster against the Waikato Chiefs in Hamilton on Friday night, not even a bonus-point win will guarantee the Brumbies a finals berth.

The best chance they have of returning to the play-offs for the first time since 2004 is by defeating the Chiefs and taking maximum points from the game in the process and ensuring their opponent gets no bonus points.

While not even that would necessarily guarantee them a finals spot, it would at least give the Brumbies maximum prospect of playing beyond next weekend.

But such is the bottleneck at the top of the table, they could conceivably defeat the Chiefs with a bonus point yet still miss out on the finals to the Waikato-based team, if the Chiefs take two bonus points from losing.

At half-time of last night's game against the Blues at Canberra Stadium, a finals berth seemed about as likely as today's top temperature reaching 40 degrees.

The Brumbies had seemingly kicked their finals prospects away with a horrible first half which netted them no tries and only two successful penalty kicks.

For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times