Toomua must be weary of Cruden: Larkham

The Brumbies will have a mountain to climb when they travel to Hamilton for the Super Rugby final on Saturday, and former Wallaby fly-half and current Brumbies attacking coach Stephen Larkham has weighed-in on the highlighted battle between the Brumbies’ Matt Toomua and the Chiefs’ Aaron Cruden.

“Cruden has very good feet,” Larkham said. “It is remarkable how many tackles he spins out of, so you have to be really careful when you come up against a guy like him.

Larkham added that Toomua needs to use his physicality against Cruden, but must be weary if rushing him.

“You have to pick your moments. You have to make sure you know what is coming at you before you fly out of the line like that.”

Toomua (92kg) has earned the reputation of being one of Australia’s up-and-coming “hitmen”, often flying out of the line to execute well-timed tackles on opposition fly-halves, and Aaron Cruden (84kg) should be in his sights, according to Larkham, who is also weary of his talents.

“You watch (Cruden’s) last couple of games, he has been really elusive with the ball in hand,” Larkham said.

“The stats say every six times he touches the ball he gets a linebreak. He carved up Dan Carter last game and the last time they played the Crusaders, so he’s the in-form five-eighth at the moment.

“You look at finals and what wins finals. You need a good goalkicker and you need good defence. It often comes down to one or two opportunities, which is what we saw last weekend. So you need your defence to be solid and that’s an area that Matt prides himself on. We’re going to be looking for that this weekend.”

Source: Fox Sports AU