Midnight arrival and a short turnaround have Brumbies keen to defy the odds

The Brumbies will spend almost 10 hours in transit and travel 2302 kilometres before arriving in Auckland after midnight days out from a Super Rugby Pacific semi-final against the Blues on Friday night.

The Waikato Chiefs have been gifted an eight-day turnaround and will fly barely more than an hour to Wellington before their semi-final clash against the Hurricanes on Saturday.

A shorter turnaround has forced Stephen Larkham to overhaul his side's training plans, and the little time to spare saw players rushing to the AIS for recovery a tick before 11pm after beating the Highlanders in a quarter-final at home.

But Larkham is confident the Brumbies can overcome the pitfalls of the looming travel and turnaround time to pull off a semi-final upset few will give them any hope for.

"It's tough," Larkham said.

"Two days post-game we don't normally train, but we'll ask the boys to get a bit of a jog on and get our detail right. We'll talk about our game plan and what we need to put in the week.

"We'll have Tuesday off, and Wednesday is going to be a shorter session. We've got a 1.25pm flight out of Canberra, so we're going to bring everything forward on the Wednesday and get a short but sharp session there.

"We'll spend a bit more time in units, because that's going to be a massive battle, the forwards battling against their forwards, so we'll try spend a little bit more time in the units and less time as a team. That's it, that'll be a good, intense session, but we'll only have one.

"We'll get on the plane and get over there after midnight New Zealand time. We have the next day just to recover and try to get the jet lag out of the system, and then we'll prep into the game on Friday."

A grand final at Canberra Stadium is a distinct possibility if the Brumbies upset the Blues and the Chiefs - showing shades of the side many tipped to win the competition earlier this year - beat the Hurricanes.

But the odds suggest a grand final in Wellington is the most likely outcome which could have Brumbies players packing for a 12-day stay across the Tasman.

The Brumbies' last trip to Eden Park ended in disaster and no ACT team has won at New Zealand rugby's most imposing venue in 11 years.

But a steely Larkham, who says the Brumbies have "achieved nothing yet", is eyeing an Eden Park boilover with a host of troops who missed April's defeat to the Blues now available for selection.

Captain Allan Alaalatoa missed that game and his front-row partner James Slipper is expected to push for a place in the side after suffering a calf tear a fortnight ago.

Together they will need to shore up a scrum that has had its struggles in a bid to pull off what would be one of the Brumbies' most famous victories.

No Australian team has gone to New Zealand and won a semi-final in Super Rugby history, with the Brumbies desperate to atone for years of near-misses after a one-point loss in Auckland in 2022 and a defeat to the Chiefs last season.

"We've been in this situation for the last couple of years. In 2022 we played the Blues in the semi-final and we lost right at the end of the game. We lost last year in the semi-final, so we've basically achieved nothing yet," Larkham said.

"We got through this week, I thought the boys played really well in the second half. We've just got to get our focus onto next week now. That's the most important thing, getting a really good performance out there next week, because we played over there once this year and it didn't work for us.

"We'll just take it one week at a time, like you have to do in finals footy, we'll get everything right in terms of our recovery and our preparation and give ourselves the best chance."