Brumbies to appeal Speight ban

Sydney - The Brumbies named Lausii Taliauli as a replacement for suspended Henry Speight ahead of their showdown against the Hurricanes in the Super Rugby semi-finals, but are also reportedly set to appeal the wing's ban.

Brumbies' coach Stephen Larkham said Taliauli, 22, was a "good, young player" and "we think he's the right man for the job".

Taliauli, who has represented the Australian Sevens team and debuted for the Canberra side this Super 15 season, has scored one try from six appearances.

The team did not announce any other changes to the side that scored six tries against the Western Stormers in their 39-19 win in Cape Town on Saturday.

Brumbies chief executive Michael Jones told the Canberra Times his side would appeal Speight's five-week suspension for a dangerous lifting tackle, which ruled him out of the semi-finals and the start of the Rugby Championship.

"We've decided we will appeal. I've discussed it with Henry and we've been talking to the lawyers today," Jones told the newspaper.

"We've looked at the findings closely and we'll appeal some of those findings and also the severity of the sentence in comparison to some of the previous incidents.

"Even though there's a statement that we're trying to discourage this, why is he the guy who seems to have been singled out for what's a particularly cruel and unusual punishment."

Jones said the Brumbies would appeal the classification of Speight's move on Stormers skipper Juan de Jongh as a lifting tackle as well as the harshness of the ban.

"That was our defence right from the start [that it wasn't a lifting tackle] and whilst we presented a lot of evidence to that case, it was still deemed that, yes, it's a lifting tackle," he added.

The Brumbies face runaway league leaders the Hurricanes in Wellington this Saturday for a place in the Super final on July 4.

Teams:

Hurricanes

15 James Marshall, 14 Nehe Milner-Skudder, 13 Conrad Smith (captain), 12 Ma'a Nonu, 11 Julian Savea, 10 Beauden Barrett 9 TJ Perenara, 8 Victor Vito, 7 Ardie Savea, 6 Brad Shields, 5 James Broadhurst, 4 Jeremy Thrush, 3 Ben Franks, 2 Dane Coles, 1 Reggie Goodes

Substitutes: 16 Brayden Mitchell, 17 Chris Eves, 18 Jeffery Toomaga-Allen, 19 Mark Abbott, 20 Blade Thomson, 21 Chris Smylie, 22 Rey Lee-Lo, 23 Matt Proctor

Brumbies

15 Jesse Mogg, 14 Lausii Taliauli, 13 Tevita Kuridrani, 12 Matt Toomua, 11 Joe Tomane, 10 Christian Lealiifano,9 Nic White, 8 Ita Vaea, 7 David Pocock, 6 Scott Fardy, 5 Blake Enever, 4 Rory Arnold, 3 Ben Alexander, 2 Stephen Moore (captain), 1 Scott Sio

Substitutes: 16 Josh Mann-Rea, 17 Allan Alaalatoa, 18 Ruan Smith, 19 Jordan Smiler, 20 Jarrad Butler, 21 Michael Dowsett, 22 Nigel Ah Wong, 23 Robbie Coleman