The Brumbies are aiming to shut down the potent Hurricanes backline when they take on the minor premiers in Saturday night's semi-final in Wellington.

The full house sign has gone up at Westpac Stadium with a capacity crowd of 34,500 expected for the biggest game in the Hurricanes' history.

The Hurricanes have lost just two games this season – to the Waratahs 29-24 in Wellington on April 18 and to the Crusaders 35-18 on May 29.

With the Brumbies having avoided the Hurricanes this year, prop Scott Sio said they would be examining the Waratahs' game to try and expose a weakness.

"The biggest thing is look at how they defended them – and the Waratahs had a lot of great line speed," Sio said.

"With the Hurricanes having so many attacking weapons – Ma'a Nonu, Julian Savea etc – you can't give them the time and space to create those opportunities. "We know how big defence is going to be in this game."

The Brumbies had their only full training session of the week on Wednesday as they look to recover from last weekend's trip to South Africa.

Sio will make his 50th Super Rugby appearance for the Brumbies, but the Wallabies representative has put his personal milestone to one side to concentrate on team success.

"It's a great occasion, but the strength of our team is we've never really focused on individual accolades," Sio said.

"They've always been part of rugby, but we understand to celebrate that we need to do our job on the weekend.

"We're up against a tough outfit this weekend."

While much has been made of the strike power in the Hurricanes' back-line, Sio knows the Brumbies can't underestimate their forward pack.

"You look at guys like (James) Broadhurst, Ardie Savea, Ben Franks ... they've all had stellar seasons," Sio said.

"They're all working for each other at the moment, which is the biggest thing we've noticed.

"We know as an eight it's going to take a huge effort to get around each other to match them because that's what it's going to take to win."

Sio praised the performances of the Brumbies' three locks – Rory Arnold, Blake Enever and Jordan Smiler – in the absence of Wallabies representative Sam Carter, who is out for the season with a knee injury.

"They've put in some massive minutes and big efforts, especially at lineout time getting a lot of steals," Sio said.

"Everyone adds something different from an individual standpoint."

Sio said the Brumbies did not have any concerns following their gruelling trip to South Africa.

"The last three years we've won every game we've come back from," he said.

"This year we were very lucky to have the bye week, which gave everyone the week to freshen up.

"No matter how your finals' run go, everyone's got to do it somehow."

The Brumbies will be without Wallabies winger Henry Speight who was suspended for five weeks for a dangerous throw by the SANZAR judiciary.

Utility Robbie Coleman is the man most likely to replace Speight when the Brumbies name their team on Thursday.

Other options include rookie James Dargaville and Nigel Ah Wong.

The Brumbies fly out for Wellington on Thursday.