The moment James Slipper went down in the warm-up, you wondered if the ACT Brumbies' title hopes had gone with him.
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The Brumbies have crashed out in the semi-finals for the third year in a row in a 34-20 loss to the Auckland Blues at Eden Park on Friday night.
The Blues await either the Hurricanes or the Chiefs in next week's Super Rugby Pacific decider, and the Brumbies fly home wondering what might have been.
Brumbies coach Stephen Larkham was forced into a late scramble minutes before kick-off when Slipper aggravated an existing calf injury and made his way up the tunnel, the veteran loosehead a late scratching in a cruel blow.
Rhys van Nek was drafted into the starting line-up with Harry Vella coming off the bench after travelling to Auckland as an injury cover - but that wasn't Larkham's only change with Cadeyrn Neville a late call-up at lock with Tom Hooper ruled out through illness.
If you're trying to do what no Australian team has done in competition history by winning a finals game in New Zealand, and chasing your first win at Eden Park in 11 years, it was far from the ideal start.
Things only soured from there. AJ Lam had the Blues' first try inside two minutes. Nearly 18 minutes later they'd scored their fourth.
The Brumbies' last trip to Eden Park ended in disaster. The 39-point margin was the third-biggest loss in the club's history, and for some time it seemed this might be a result to match it after the ACT missed the jump against a rampaging Blues outfit.
"We showed throughout that whole year we have that fight, but it's a tough lesson for us that in finals, especially against the Blues at their home stadium, you can't give them that lead early in the game," Brumbies captain Allan Alaalatoa said.
"We weren't clinical coming out of our end. I think we gave them three balls off our kick-off receipt and they made us pay through tries. You can't give a side like that [the] ascendancy at the beginning of a game. We tried to fight hard from there but I think they got too much of a lead at the start of the game.
"We thought that we were building nicely and were probably going to write a different script this year, but it wasn't meant to be."
Slipper was racing the clock to play again this season after suffering a calf tear in the penultimate round of the regular season, but was cleared to return earlier this week in the hope he could bolster a misfiring scrum against the Blues.
Even he might not have been able to turn this around, because even while the Brumbies were being outgunned, they received no favours from the officials. Referee James Doleman missed a pair of blatant knock-ons late in the first half which had Brumbies forward Rob Valetini voicing his disbelief.
Valetini crashed over soon after and the ACT went to the sheds with a sniff. Trailing 27-13 at the break, Larkham's 100th game as Brumbies coach might called for his finest half-time speech.
"I wouldn't say there's a lot of confidence in there at the moment," Larkham said outside the rooms during the half-time break.
When Hoskins Sotutu tied the Super Rugby record for most tries in a season by a forward with 20 minutes remaining, any hope of a second half comeback seemed shot.
Luke Reimer gave the visitors a flicker of hope when he crossed in the 69th minute, but Nick Frost conceded a penalty from the restart for taking out Blues winger Caleb Clarke. It wasn't the first time the ACT had shot themselves in the foot after points. Frost saw yellow, the Brumbies were down to 14 men for the final nine minutes, and they had fired their final shot.
"There's some specifics in the game that probably went against us. Some of that was our fault, some of that was the way the Blues played," Larkham said.
"We showed a lot of good stuff out there. We know that with all the distractions we've had in the build-up to this week, a six-day turnaround and all that sort of stuff, we put a good performance out there and we're not far away.
"We just need to be a little bit more consistent in all we do. That will be our work on going forward, knowing we've got a game there that is good enough if we're consistent enough."
The Brumbies now face a long trip home on Saturday, and Blues are still in the hunt for their first full Super Rugby title in 21 years.
The grand final venue hinges on the result of Saturday's semi-final between the Hurricanes and Chiefs in Wellington.
A Hurricanes win would take the decider to Wellington for the first time since 2016, while a Chiefs win would gift the Blues home ground advantage at Eden Park, where the Auckland outfit is unbeaten in their past 15 games.
Two things are certain: discounting the COVID-19-induced domestic competitions, Super Rugby will have a new champion for the first time since 2016, and Australia's decade-long wait to see one of their own lift the trophy goes on.
AT A GLANCE
Super Rugby Pacific semi-final: AUCKLAND BLUES 34 (AJ Lam, Ricky Riccitelli, Sam Darry, Caleb Clarke, Hoskins Sotutu tries; Harry Plummer 3 conversions; Plummer penalty) bt ACT BRUMBIES 20 (Rob Valetini, Luke Reimer tries; Noah Lolesio 2 conversions; Lolesio 2 penalties) at Eden Park.