ACT Brumbies have left their defensive attitude back in Canberra as their troubled lead-in to the Super 12 Rugby tournament continued with a 55-5 thrashing by the Highlanders in Dunedin.

The Highlanders ran in nine tries to one as the Brumbies suffered their second straight pre-season loss following last week's defeat by the Blues.

The New Zealand team led 31-5 at halftime in the Carisbrook fixture with No.8 Scott Fava, the Brumbies' only tryscorer.

Brumbies coach David Nucifora felt his team's defensive shortcomings owed more to attitude than technique and wasn't overly concerned a week before their opening Super 12 fixture against Queensland.

"There's no illusion about where we go. We've got some work to do, but it's nothing that I am ultimately concerned about," Nucifora said.

"Technically, we performed reasonably well but we left our attitude back in Canberra as far as defence went.

"We performed well in some areas. It's hard to believe with the scoreline, but I was quite happy with a lot of our setpiece work.

"Our scrum and our lineout performed reasonably well.

"In the first 40 minutes with the ball that we had, our attack was functioning reasonably well.

"But they just out-muscled us physically and played very well and dominated the advantage line and we defended poorly and fell off tackles and paid for it.

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