The Brumbies are one of those teams that find themselves in a bit of a bind when it comes to designing new jerseys – the basic template of what fans expect from their jersey is so set in stone now that there’s not much wriggle room, really.
It’s certainly something that Classic Sports have wrestled with since signing up the Brumbies in 2014 – but asides from tearing up the rulebook a few years back, they’ve generally kept pretty close to the recipe.
For 2018, however, the Aussie brand has opted to go even more traditional than usual with a pair of jerseys that are about as fan-pleasing and old-school as anyone could want.
So we have a home and away jersey that in the default style just flips the blue and white bits around, but rather than the gold or yellow stripes we’ve become accustomed to over the last few years, Classic has opted to return to the burnt orange colour that the Brumbies wore during their mid-to-late-90s glory years.
It’s a subtle change for sure, but it’s one that we really like – it makes those flashes of colour really pop, and both jerseys are a proper collar away from feeling like 90s throwbacks in the best kind of way.
Okay, when a team that struggles to break from the mould jersey-wise responds by going even more into the mould, perhaps we shouldn’t be applauding them… but we find these shirts very hard to dislike, and that’s perhaps the point…