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Wayne Smith | April 20, 2009 The Australian
THE Brumbies plan to tap into their old-boy network to determine if one of three Japan-based former Wallabies is able to return to Canberra on a short-term contract to help avert a looming second-row crisis.
Lineout mainstay Ben Hand will undergo an MRI scan today to determine the full extent of the apparent hamstring injury that forced the Brumbies to play the entire second half of the Bulls match without him on Friday night.
Early indications were that he faced at least a two-match lay-off and if the scan validates those fears, then the Brumbies' heroic drive towards the Super 14 finals could falter for want of a reliable lineout.
"And, of course, this would have been an ideal opportunity for Macca to really establish himself but sadly that's not to be," said Brumbies coach Andy Friend, referring to the late Shawn Mackay, who was recruited as a 26-year-old precisely to fill the breach in such an emergency.
But with that option taken from him, Friend is investigating whether former Wallabies Radike Samo, Daniel Heenan or Adam Wallace-Harrison can be released from their Japanese clubs to pinch-hit off the bench if required in the Brumbies' remaining matches against the Hurricanes, Reds, Blues and Chiefs.
"Their season in Japan is finished but it's just a case of whether we can get one of them released," Friend said.
For the third time this season, the Brumbies on Friday pulled off a Harry Houdini-like finish to steal a victory that could so easily have been claimed by the Bulls, but it took not much short of a miracle to achieve it after their lineout went into meltdown without Hand in the second half.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html