Prop Scott Sio believes the Brumbies can draw inspiration from the underdog deeds of Australia's new sporting hero Jeff Horn, as they welcome three of their leaders back for the run in to the Super Rugby finals.
Backs Tomas Cubelli and Christian Lealiifano, neither of who have played a Super match this year, both made a comeback in a game in Singapore during the June competition break for the Test program.
Lealiifano hasn't played a Super game for almost a year because of a battle with leukaemia, while Argentinian international Cubelli sustained knee damage in a pre-season game.
Wallabies' prop Scott Sio suffered ankle ligament damage in April, but returned to action in June with the Wallabies.
Sio, Cubelli and Lealiifano are all all available for a near full strength Brumbies squad going into Friday's clash with the Queensland Reds in Brisbane.
"If that does come to fruition with Christian and Tomas (playing) it would be a great confidence booster for us," Sio said.
The Brumbies wrapped up the Australian conference with two rounds to play, after notching three straight wins before the June break.
However, they still aren't being talked about as frontline contenders, probably because of the weak state of the Australian conference and the dominance of the Australasian group by the New Zealand sides, one of whom they will play in a home quarter-final.
Sio isn't fussed by the the low external expectations.
He feels the Brumbies might be able to thrive as underdogs, like newly crowned WBO welterweight boxing world champion Horn did in his stunning upset of Manny Pacquiao in the same Brisbane stadium they will play in on Friday.
"I think we can draw a bit of inspiration from that and see the fight that he brought for the entire 12 rounds," Sio said.
"But I don't think anyone was going to give us shot from the start of the season anyway, so I guess it's nothing different for us.
"We've been pretty written off since the start, so we'll build on that.
"We'll use that underdog tag and we'll just stick together."
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