In just the second major injury blow of the Brumbies' season, scans revealed Kuridrani damaged his AC joint in the 28-13 loss to the NSW Waratahs on Sunday.

But the newly re-signed Wallaby will avoid surgery and he could be back earlier than expected if his rehabilitation goes according to plan.

Kuridrani's injury hit was overshadowed by the controversial homophobic slur which led to Waratahs forward Jacques Potgieter being fined $20,000 by the ARU on Monday night.

The Brumbies will likely turn to trio James Dargaville, Henry Speight or Nigel Ah Wong to fill the outside centre spot in Kuridrani's absence.

The Brumbies have escaped relatively unscathed through most of their matches this year, with Pocock and Kuridrani the only significant injuries.

Kuridrani's injury will force coach Stephen Larkham to make the first change to the starting back line this year for the Brumbies' clash against the Free State Cheetahs on April 4.

"Depending on how he gets through, he's likely to be out for two months," Larkham said.

"We've got a number of options there. There's Dargaville, Henry has played a bit of No.13, Nigel Ah Wong is coming off injury, Jesse Mogg is back and Lausii Taliauli as well as Rod Iona."

Lock Rory Arnold and scrumhalf Nic White both left the field injured in the Waratahs match, but they were expected to be fit to play the Cheetahs.

The Brumbies were left licking their wounds after just the second defeat of the season so far.

A win would have seen them streak clear at the top of the Australian conference, but the Waratahs are within striking distance.

NSW coach Michael Cheika believes the Brumbies are a "grand final team".

"To play well against them is something that is pleasing for us, but also there's a part of us that knows that improvement every week [is good] but we have to keep it going," Cheika said.

"... They've been playing really good footy, a really good balance between attack and power and great defence.

"I see they've got seniority and I think that's a very realistic thing to say because they're up the top of the table.

"For us, that type of consistency, once we play three or four games like that and start delivering it all the time, then we can start to think 'maybe we can sneak in here or get that there'."

The Brumbies play four of their next five games at Canberra Stadium after the bye this weekend.

One major positive for the Brumbies is that David Pocock made a successful return from an ankle injury, but conceded he didn't know when he would return to the starting side.

"I felt pretty good, I got 35 minutes. I've done a fair bit of work in the last few weeks," Pocock said.

"Ita [Vaea] and JB [Jarrad Butler] have been outstanding, if I was the coach I wouldn't have dropped either of them. Coming off the bench was something different."

Brumbies captain Stephen Moore said the Waratahs deserved to win the Australian derby in Sydney.

"We were pretty desperate to win [against the Waratahs]," Moore said.

"I guess if we had've won it would have put a bit of a gap on the conference ... we knew they would play with desperation.

"It shows us where we are at the moment. But we still did a lot of good things, the season has ups and downs. We just have to make sure we bounce back and we need to make sure we do that next game."