How Nic White and some 'old codgers' from 2004 are fuelling the Brumbies

It sets the stage for a thrilling final round of the regular season, with White's Western Force in desperate need of a win to sneak into the top eight while the Brumbies are preparing a last-ditch bid for a top-two finish.

The Brumbies will head to Perth to face the Force on Saturday night, and should the cards fall in Stephen Larkham's favour, a win could be enough to leapfrog either the Blues or Hurricanes - if not both - on the competition ladder.

The ACT enter the final round on 48 competition points, while the Blues and Hurricanes are on 51 apiece. The Blues face the fourth-ranked Chiefs while the Hurricanes play the seventh-placed Highlanders in the last round.

A trip across the Tasman at some stage seems almost inevitable for the Brumbies, who have fallen in semi-finals in Auckland and Hamilton over the past two years.

But if ever there was a time to reverse the trend, Brumbies forward Tom Hooper says this can be the year.

"I think it was actually Nic White that said it to us, which is really nice, before he parted with us for the wild west," Hooper said.

"He said to us 'You're building a similar group, the last two years both made semi-finals, there's no reason why you can't push further with a bit of extra hard work'. We've done the hard work now and we're just hoping we can perform on game day to make sure we reap the rewards of that.

"It was funny, talking to a couple of the old codgers in the dressing room last week from the old 2004 team, they went close in 2002 and 2003, and in 2004 they got the choccies. We're hoping we can emulate a bit of that.

"We know we're going to have to roll up the sleeves and do the hard work, but if we can do it we can go all the way.

"We've performed really well in our last two quarter-finals at home. It's a really big goal of ours to try to get into the top two. If we can lock that in, it goes a long way to pushing us deeper into the competition than we went last year."

Hooper forced his way back into Larkham's starting XV as the Brumbies piled 53 points on the Rebels last week.

Now the 23-year-old - who is in talks with the Brumbies about signing a new deal to stay with the Australian Super Rugby powerhouse - is desperate to stay there.

But to do so he'll have to fend off challenges from a star-studded forward pack littered with Test-capped players like Force-bound Darcy Swain, Cadeyrn Neville and Nick Frost.

"I'm really excited to be back starting. Obviously there's been a fair bit of competition lately for spots with all our back five going really well," Hooper said.

"Our second-rowers, all three blokes you're competing with are Wallabies, and in the back-row, young Charlie Cale has been doing well. It's good to be shuffled around and add a few different strings to my bow, but [I'm happy to be] back to second row to lock down that scrum and put 120 kilos to work.

"Honestly, I think competition breeds success. For us to be challenging each other on a Tuesday and a Thursday probably harder than we're challenging each other on a Saturday, it's exciting.

"Not many teams in Australia have that luxury where Tuesdays and Thursdays are just as hard as Saturdays because everyone is pushing for spots.

"Everyone is putting shots on each other and then you shake hands at the end of the day because you're really good mates. It's exciting to have that sort of vibe."