In a season of uncertainty, Alaalatoa is Brumbies’ rock

In years to come, people will experience all manner of emotions as they look back on 2020 – sadness, regret, frustration, rage, most likely. But that won’t apply to Allan Alaalatoa.

Brumbies captain Allan Alaalatoa has led the team through a tumultuous season

In years to come, people will experience all manner of emotions as they look back on 2020 – sadness, regret, frustration, rage, most likely. But that won’t apply to Allan Alaalatoa. If anything, he will recall this year with something approaching pride.

It’s not that he is indifferent to the sufferings of others. Not at all. This very interview after all was made possible by his support for the Fight Cancer Foundation as part of its Footy Colours Day program.

But circumstances … well, circumstances and Dan McKellar … thrust Alaalatoa into the position of being captain of the Brumbies this year. McKellar, the Brumbies head coach, had not a clue what this year would bring when he picked up his phone and made the offer to the Wallabies tighthead. Still, had he known, he would surely have been even more determined to convince Alaalatoa to take the job. In a year of uncertainty and crisis, the Brumbies have been led by a clear-eyed man of principle. Curiously, he is a man named after another captain who led his team out of crisis, Allan Border.

Brumbies captain Allan Alaalatoa with coach Dan McKellar. Picture: Getty Images

A global pandemic takes some beating in your debut year as captain but that wasn’t the only upheaval to test Alaalatoa and the Brumbies this season. 2020 was only five days old when the club was forced to relocate to Newcastle because of hazardous air conditions in Canberra brought on by the bushfires. They spent 10 days there before they could return home.

Then there was the mumps outbreak which caused five players and assistant coach Peter Hewat to be isolated just as the Brumbies were about to leave for Hamilton and what turned out to be their most memorable win of the season, against the Chiefs. And then the pandemic itself descended and the Super Rugby competition was suspended at first and ultimately abandoned.

For teams like the Waratahs, who had made a miserable start to the season, the abandonment couldn’t come quickly enough. But for the Brumbies, who had lost only one match and that by a single point to the Highlanders, it rudely curtailed a season shaping up very promisingly indeed. Who is to say whether the Brumbies would have gone on to win a third Super Rugby title? All that can be said is that when the competition shut down, they were placed second on the ladder to the Sharks and building momentum with every outing.

“Straight away, when we heard that Super Rugby was getting cancelled, we were all gutted because we were all in fine form and playing some great footy, gutted that we couldn’t continue that roll-on of success we were having,” Alaalatoa told The Australian

Months of chaos followed before finally word came through that Super Rugby would resume, but not as the players knew it. It would be entirely a domestic competition. The Brumbies captain asked his team for a dramatic shift in mindset and that’s precisely what they delivered.

“This is our next competition, this is our next goal to achieve,” he told them. “And then it was about trying to transfer that form we had at the beginning of the year over into this comp. In terms of shifting mindsets and changing goals, I think the boys did really well then.

“We’ve had a lot of setbacks, not just the coronavirus but we had the bushfires at the start of the year, and then the mumps … and it’s just how we have come out on top of all that.

“That’s probably one of my proudest moments, being captain of this side and seeing the boys not taking this opportunity for granted. It’s about appreciating that we have been able to play, understanding what the next goal was, what the next trophy was — and that’s the Super Rugby AU trophy.”

Tighthead prop Allan Alaalatoa has taken the Brumbies to a home grand final

To this point, the Brumbies have done everything asked of them to make that trophy their own. They finished the regular season as the best side in Australia to earn a home grand final in Canberra this Saturday.

But now they are coming up against their nemesis side, the Queensland Reds. Way back at the dawn of the Super Rugby season, they beat them by three points in Canberra; then they beat them by two points in Super Rugby AU, but in their last showdown, up in Brisbane, the Reds finished on top 26-7. By that stage the home final had already been secured. Still, as McKellar has pointed out, it is the grand final everyone wanted to see.

It comes as no surprise to McKellar that the Brumbies have followed faithfully where Alaalatoa has led this year, as tortuous and twisted as the road has been. That’s why he picked him, picked him too because he wanted a captain who had lived the team’s journey.

“He’s been at the club since 2014 but this particular group, since I’ve been head coach, he was across what our values are and he lives and breathes them through his action. And he is someone who has that rare talent of being able to have a laugh and relax but then be able to flick the switch.

“He doesn’t rant and rave and I knew he wasn’t going to be someone who talks the house down but I didn’t need him to be. When he thinks it time to raise his voice and voice his thoughts he will do that. But he is someone who leads through his actions.”

• For more information visit the website: https://www.fightcancer.org.au/footy-colours-day-homepage