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Brumbies' Stirling Mortlock passes - Source: Photosport -
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Wallabies and Brumbies outside centre Stirling Mortlock has been cleared by doctors after it was initially feared he may have suffered a serious injury to his shoulder in Saturday night's Super 14 win over the Sharks in Canberra.
Mortlock failed to return to the field after half time in his side's 24-22 win .
Brumbies coach Andy Friend said after the match that it appeared Mortlock had damaged his AC joint but scans on Sunday revealed the injury was not as bad as first thought.
He has been declared fit and will travel with the side to New Zealand for their clash with the Blues on Friday night in Auckland.
The Brumbies will travel to Auckland on Thursday without any injury concerns from the hard-fought win over the Sharks, winless now from five outings this season.
ACT on the other hand will be chasing their fourth win in a row when they take on the Blues.
Brumbies captain Stephen Hoiles said that while the side was obviously pleased with its recent record, they were not getting ahead of themselves.
"We've won a few games now but we're all pretty aware that we've got a lot of improvement in us."
The Brumbies scored two tries to one in the win over the Sharks and dominated the South Africans in the set pieces, particularly in the scrum despite coming up against an all-Springbok front row.
Brumbies loosehead prop and two-try hero Ben Alexander was a stand-out, but reserved his own praise for fellow front rower Salesi Ma'afu.
"Salesi Ma'afu, he's improved out of sight. He's one of the top tight-heads now the way his scrummaging, he just gets us great go forward on our ball," Alexander said.
The Brumbies front three of Alexander, Moore at hooker and Ma'afu were on top of the Sharks front row, which included Springbok captain John Smit, and fellow internationals Bismarck du Plessis and Tendai "The Beast" Mtawarira, from the outset on Saturday night.
But Alexander said they still had a lot of work to do and had some tough contests in front of them in the weeks ahead, including against the Blues.
"We've got a lot of work to do on opposition ball, that probably comes back down to me and the hooker and we've just got to keep working hard to compliment the great work that Salesi's doing because he's really going well now," he said.
"There's a few scrums we haven't played yet who are very good, the Crusaders, especially the Waratahs, and the Blues next week. They're probably the best three scrums in the competition."
"It's good to get a few results now but the hardest work is still well ahead of us."
