ACT Brumbies captain Sam Carter has called on his team to play "smarter rugby" in the dying stages of matches after suffering another last-minute heartbreaker on Friday night.
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The Brumbies leaked 10 points in the last eight minutes to lose to the Queensland Reds 16-15 in Brisbane in the second last game of the regular season.
The tight defeat didn't dent their finals campaign given they've already secured Australia's guaranteed play-off berth, but it was the seventh time this season they had lost a game by seven points or less.
The Brumbies battled a growing injury toll in the second half, but Carter said the loss came down to failing to execute when the game was on the line.
"It was a bit of a scrappy match, but we've just got to look to play smarter rugby," Carter said.
"We were our own worst enemy for the last 15 minutes of the match and a bit in the first half as well.
"If they're the conditions we're going to get, we've got to be smarter moving forward. We did that for the first 20 minutes of the second half ... but we went away from that.
"I don't know if that's because of the substitutions we made or calm heads, but we've got to be smarter in those moments in the match."
Carter backed the Brumbies' depth to cover the loss of injuries, with Adian Toua, Kyle Godwin and Chris Alcock facing stints on the sideline.
Locl Rory Arnold is nursing a shoulder problem and could be rested from the last game of the regular season against the Waikato Chiefs.
The Brumbies will play the Chiefs in Hamilton on Saturday night before hosting a quarter-final at Canberra Stadium on July 21.
They will play either the Chiefs or the Wellington Hurricanes in the first week of the play-offs.
The Brumbies haven't beaten a New Zealand team since round one last year and Australian sides have lost the past 29 trans-Tasman games.
"We'll have to make some changes to our starting side [next weekend] ... the errors we made weren't about combinations, it was about ball control through contact," said coach Stephen Larkham.
"We couldn't get through three phases in a row in the first half. The concern for us, and what we've been working on all year, is closing out games. We'll discuss it, we've got to make sure we're better in those moments."
Toua and Godwin will have scans on their ankle and knee injuries on Sunday.
"We'll take a lot of learning out of that game against the Reds and adapt our game to the conditions over the next couple of weeks," Toua said.
"You want guys to go into finals with confidence, but you also have to manage injuries so I'm sure the coaches will have a plan."
