Melbourne Rebels coach Dave Wessels admits his 2018 Super Rugby team would likely have lost last Friday's round one clash with the Brumbies.
The Rebels trailed their Canberra opponents at halftime but surged home for a 34-27 win.
Wessels said the strong finish was pay off from specialised fitness training in the off-season under former England rugby head of sports science Dean Benton.
With England from 2016 until late last year, Benton also worked with the Wallabies in the build-up to the 2015 World Cup and has spent time with the Brumbies and NRL club Melbourne.
A number of England players sang Benton's praises when their team were lauded for strong finishes to matches during their long unbeaten run.
Wessels said he hoped to see similar results with the Rebels, who have a round two bye, after changing their fitness program.
"We've been much more specific around our training," Wessels said on Thursday.
"Last year we thought that guys lacked a general capacity so we spent a lot of last year getting them to a level where we built a conditioning base.
"This year we're getting guys to work in ways that we think replicate the game and part of that is understanding our game a lot deeper and modelling off that.
"I thought the players showed a lot of capacity at the back end of the game to still be working at speed."
Wessels said analysis showed his team last season fell away just before halftime and then again just before fulltime, which left them unable to compete with the top teams.
"I think it's fair to say the Brumbies game might have been a game we'd lost last year," he said.
Wessels used Billy Meakes as an example after the centre was a stand-out against the Brumbies.
"Billy's had a huge off-season and has added a lot of speed to his game and he's super fit and I think you're seeing that in his performances," he said.
The Rebels' next match is against the Highlanders at AAMI Park on Friday week.
Wessels said Wallabies centre Reece Hodge and lock Adam Coleman had both recovered from injury to be available for selection.
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