Kurtley Beale is confident the Waratahs will cope without Luke Burgess against the Blues in Friday night's Super Rugby play-off.
Half-back ruled out by hand injury
Kurtley Beale is confident the Waratahs will cope without injured half-back Luke Burgess against the Blues in Friday night's Super Rugby play-off at Eden Park.
Burgess was ruled out of the big game after an X-ray revealed he had broken a hand in training on Tuesday.
There's no doubt the absence of Burgess is something the Waratahs could have done without, but Beale is confident they will be okay.
"Luke's an exceptional player, very unpredictable," he said. "It doesn't really matter who is inside me or who is outside me - a lot of them I have played footie with before and I've got confidence in Josh Holmes or Brendon McKibbin.
"They're great players within themselves so whatever the selection is there I am pretty happy to go with either."
Injuries to Berrick Barnes and Daniel Halangahu have meant Beale has had more responsibility in controlling the game as opposed to the role at full-back which allowed him to pop up anywhere. Now he is looking forward to the very different challenge that knock-out rugby presents.
"We're pretty confident this week, we all understand our roles and hopefully we can take that out onto the field," he said.
"When you're in this finals football it is a totally different ball game, anything can happen. The Blues are an exciting team but we are pretty confident we can match them up front.
"We've come here to do a job and a lot of the boys are pretty keen to get out
there."
