Folau Faingaa starts grinning because he knows the question is coming: How can a hooker be the leading try-scorer in Super Rugby? Then his teammates walk behind him and laugh.
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But they're not laughing at Faingaa. They're laughing with him given he's scored 10 tries in 10 games so far this season, a remarkable and almost unheard of feat by a forward.
"The boys give it to me if I don't score them," the ACT Brumbies rake says. "They say you better score them or you're going to cop it during the week.
"It's pleasing the boys up the front are doing the hard work. It's easy for me to put the ball over the line."
A Faingaa hat-trick lifted the Brumbies to a gritty win against the Auckland Blues at Canberra Stadium on Saturday night, holding on for a 26-21 triumph that puts them level at the top of the Australian conference.
It was the perfect birthday present for the rake, who turns 24 on Sunday, and his three tries came from the back of three rolling mauls to make him the standalone leading try-scorer in the competition.
"It's brilliant, isn't it? The wingers would be filthy," grinned Brumbies coach Dan McKellar.
"It's good to see. And Folau would be the first to thank the others up front ahead of him. He's got an important role at the back and you have to make a lot of decision some people wouldn't be aware of, and he does it well."
Faingaa did thank the Brumbies forward pack. So did their coach, their captain and their fans. Because without the forwards, the Brumbies wouldn't have beaten the Blues.
The Brumbies dominated the scrum, the lineout and the maul, Blues coach Leon McDonald conceding his team couldn't handle the sustained pressure.
At one point the Blues gave away 13 penalties in a row trying to defend their own line, but even then the Brumbies had to scrap their way to a crucial victory for their season.
They are now level with the Melbourne Rebels at the top of the Australian conference with five games left in the Brumbies' regular season. They will remain at the top unless the NSW Waratahs get a bonus-point win against the Pretoria Bulls on Sunday morning.
The Brumbies' win against the Blues certainly wasn't pretty, but it didn't have to be after a trip around the world in two weeks to play in South Africa and Argentina.
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The Brumbies simply needed to win, and the gritty, grinding nature of their performances in recent weeks suggests they're ready for a fight to earn a play-off spot.
"I'm really pleased," McKellar said. "They're just a really brave group and we've got a lot of confidence out of our defence over the last few weeks.
"We had a plan here tonight around set piece and maul, and I thought our forwards were unbelievable. They executed to perfection."
The Brumbies scored four tries to two against the Blues and had a one-man advantage for 20 minutes of the match.
The contest, however, was far closer than the statistics suggested and the Blues had their chances in the closing seconds to snatch an unlikely win.
In the end Faingaa's hat-trick, which takes his season tally to 10 tries in 10 games, and James Slipper's show and go from close range were enough to secure a morale-boosting win.
"I've just got to be patient at the back there and not to be too eager to leave the back of the maul so quick," Faingaa said.
"I never heard the end of it last year [when I did leave a maul early]. It was a big focus for us going into this game, I was just lucky enough to get three tries.
"It's the boys up front, they do all the muscle. But all the outside backs come in to help as well and they claim it as an assist. You've got to prep well and come into the game and execute it."
The result sets up an exciting finish to the Australian conference this year, with the Brumbies, Rebels, Waratahs and Queensland Reds all in contention for a guaranteed place in the finals.
The only potential sour note for the Brumbies was an injury to lock Rory Arnold, who limped off the field in the first half after having his legs twisted awkwardly underneath him.
"It was really pleasing to come back, we started slow but we knew we just had to get our game going. Our forwards were massive tonight," said Brumbies captain Christian Lealiifano.
"We've got to continue to work at our game, it's going to be crunch time now and we have to keep improving. A performance like that was really gutsy."
The Blues scored the first try in the eighth minute, despite confusion between the referees about whether the pass to TJ Faiane was forward before he got the ball down.
The pain got worse for the Brumbies two minutes later when Lealiifano floated a pass across the field which landed straight in Caleb Clarke's hands, gifting the 20-year-old one of the easiest tries in Super Rugby history.
To make matters worse, prop James Slipper had to leave the field for a concussion test and then Lealiifano put the ball out on the field from the restart.
It could have been worse had playmaker Otere Black slotted two penalty opportunities, but his misses were of little consolation to the spluttering Brumbies who also lost lock Rory Arnold to injury.
The home side finally got some momentum when Blues prop Alex Hodgman was sent to the sin bin for an off-the-ball hit on Tom Cusack, and Faingaa scored his first from the ensuing rolling maul.
The Brumbies used their scrum to muscle their way back into the contest and it eventually paid off when Slipper swooped on a knocked-down pass to cut the gap to three points.
The Brumbies had a chance to level the score after the half-time siren, but they opted to go for an attacking lineout rather than taking a shot at goal.
They got within millmetres of making the decision pay off when Joe Powell got over the line, but the scrumhalf couldn't get the ball to the ground and the Blues held on to a 15-12 lead at the break.
The Blues gave away 14 penalties in a row and had tighthead prop Ofa Tuungafasi sent to the sin bin for repeated infringements, opening the door for Faingaa to get his second and for the Brumbies to steal the lead for the first time.
The Blues kicked two penalties to get back the lead, but Faingaa completed his hat-trick to give the Brumbies the break they needed with 13 minutes left in the match.
In the end it was enough for the Brumbies to hold on for a five-point win, snapping a three-game losing streak against the Blues.
AT A GLANCE
ACT BRUMBIES 26 (Folau Faingaa 3, James Slipper tries; Christian Lealiifano 2 conversions) bt AUCKLAND BLUES 21 (TJ Faiane, Caleb Clarke tries; Otere Black conversion; Harry Plummer 2, Otere Black penalties) at Canberra Stadium on Saturday night. Referee: Damon Murphy. Crowd: 7567