Joe Tomane breaks leg in club rugby

Joe Tomane has been ruled out for the remainder of the Super Rugby season and will miss two Rugby Championship Tests.

Brumbies winger Joe Tomane re-injured himself playing club rugby in Canberra

Brumbies winger Joe Tomane has been ruled out for the remainder of the Super Rugby season with a leg injury and will also miss the first two Rugby Championship Tests against the All Blacks.

Tomane was in the best form of his career before he sustained a knee injury in the Brumbies’ loss to the Crusaders in Canberra in round nine.

Ironically, Tomane was passed fit to play for the Brumbies against the Blues in Auckland last Friday, but was not ready mentally to return. Instead, Tomane played for Uni-Norths in Canberra club rugby last Saturday and sustained a fracture to the tibia bone in his lower leg.

Tomane, who will join French club Montpellier at the end of the season, is expected to be sidelined for up to eight weeks.

“This is a tough pill to swallow,” Tomane said. “Unfortunately, these things happen in rugby and I won’t get to farewell everyone the way I would have liked, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

“I still believe this team has what it takes to win the title this year and I’ll be doing everything I can to help out the players in whatever way I can.”

The Brumbies should be able to beat the Western Force in Canberra on Saturday night without Tomane, but they would have liked him back for the playoffs.

While the NSW Waratahs still have a mathematical chance of finishing on top of the Australian conference if they beat the Blues in Auckland on Friday night, the Brumbies are in a more favourable position.

The Brumbies and the Waratahs are equal on 39 points, but the Brumbies are ahead because they have won one more game.

The Canberra side may not even have to beat the Force to clinch the conference title if the Waratahs lose to the Blues without collecting a bonus point.

“We’ve always been big on controlling our own destiny and our season,” Brumbies loosehead prop Scott Sio said.

“We’ve been presented with another opportunity to make a finals run and it’s definitely something we are not going to waste.”

Sio said the Brumbies could not afford to underestimate the Force, who have only won two games and experienced off-field drama on a recent trip to South Africa, which resulted in Dane Haylett-Petty being fined $5000 for urinating in a hotel corridor.

“The Force are a quality side,” Sio said. “They have shown they can pull off some good wins.

“If we don’t turn up, it could be the end for us. A lot of people forget that a lot of guys in the Blues and the Force are also playing for Wallabies and All Blacks spots. That’s enough fuel for anyone to play well.

“Coming off the week they have had off the field they will be looking at turning that around and finish on a positive note.

“We can’t expect anything different. They are a very strong set-piece side and very good defensively. We are going to have to make sure our execution across the board is good.”

The Brumbies will need to improve on their performance in their 40-15 loss to the Blues or risk an upset loss to the Force, who surprised them in the last round of the 2013 season in Perth.

“The Blues are a quality side and they’ve got a great record at Eden Park,” Sio said. “Unfortunately, when you don’t turn up in the effort areas of the game that’s what can happen to you.

“They can put 40, 50 points on you. We are very disappointed with the way that game turned out, but it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Meanwhile, the Brumbies are waiting on the fitness of flankers David Pocock (eye socket) and Scott Fardy (shoulder).