Silky-skilled Julian Huxley enjoyed a magnificent return to Brumbies colours to help burst the Chiefs' bubble with an opening-round 21-15 victory in Hamilton.

The mercurial Huxley was a stand-out in his first Super rugby match for the Brumbies since 2002, ensuring the much-fancied Chiefs failed in their quest to break an eight-year drought against the two-time champions.

The Brumbies did pay a price for the win with Wallabies winger Mark Gerrard sustaining a medial ligament damage to his knee which could sideline him for a month.

The Mulu-men have been talked up as competition favourites after Waikato won last year's New Zealand NPC.

But the more-skilful Brumbies showed coach Laurie Fisher's pre-match suggestion the Chiefs were over-rated by controlling the bulk of the game.

Only an 80m intercept to two-try winger Soseni Anesi in the 63rd minute, when the Brumbies led 18-5 and had a three-man overlap, kept the home side in the contest.

It also came after five-eighth Huxley missed an easy penalty attempt.

"We could have got out to a (16)-point lead and then suffered a 14-point turnaround on the intercept so I think the Chiefs were lucky to get close," said Fisher.

"I thought we did enough to win comfortably.

"It's a starting point."

The Brumbies were outscored two tries to three but enjoyed the lion share of quality ball, which Gregan and Huxley used slickly to service its dangerous backline.

Bulked-up lock Mark Chisholm, flanker George Smith, one of three players sin-binned, and skipper Stirling Mortlock were also influential.

Unwanted by Queensland after four years of service playing four different positions in the backline, Huxley savoured his return to show he could ably step into the playmaking role left vacant by Stephen Larkham, whose wife gave birth to a baby girl this week.

The 27-year-old seemingly had the ball on a string during different passages of the entertaining first-round encounter, which included a booming 53m penalty that would have raised the flags from 63m.

But there were some moments to forget, missing the close-range penalty and falling off a clutch tackle on replacement winger Leila Masaga who crossed with five minutes left to ensure a tense finish.

"I though Hux was tremendous, really incisive with the ball, he just struggled a little in defence at fullback, but with the ball in hand he was wonderful," said Fisher.

"It was a great kicking game from him, it gave us some fantastic territory which we haven't had for the past two years."

It took just five minutes for Mortlock to post a brilliant opening try after Huxley regained an up-and-under on the quarter-line.

Three quick-fire phases later - highlighted by a George Smith line-break and off-load to Chisholm - Gene Fairbanks popped a deft pass for his centre partner to evade three cover defenders on the angle.

Mortlock extended the lead to 10-0 after 11 minutes with a penalty goal and it appeared a question of how many when Chiefs captain Jono Gibbes was sin-binned soon after for high shot on Mark Gerrard.

But the visitors failed to make the most of the extra man and even conceded a try to Anesi during the 10-minute period.

The Brumbies started the second half in the same rich vein of class as the first with Huxley, Smith and Chisholm all handling crisply to put Clyde Rathbone over for a 15-5 lead.

"We weren't clinical enough and we were our own worst enemy," said Gibbes.

"I think we've let ourselves down and let a genuine opportunity go."

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