Senior players say the slumping Brumbies must show more character and address their breakdown deficiencies to get their faltering Super rugby campaign back on track.

The Canberra-based franchise crashed to a third successive defeat with a deflating 52-10 drubbing by the Crusaders in Nelson on Friday.

They conceded the last 46 points of the game after leading 10-6, as the relentless Crusaders feasted on numerous turnovers and missed tackles.

Anchored in the bottom half of the table with one win from four games, the Brumbies and their new coach Tony Rea have a timely bye before hosting NSW.

Injuries to flanker Mitchell Chapman (fractured cheekbone), winger Henry Speight (suspected broken jaw) and hooker Stephen Moore (sprained ankle) added further irritation in the aftermath of a poor performance.

"We've got to look at ourselves pretty hard, it's not the start we wanted to the season but I think we'll bounce back," Brumbies' captain and five-eighth Matt Giteau said in his post-match television interview.

"We've got to show a lot more character than that, that was really disappointing."

Wallabies prop Ben Alexander also tipped the Brumbies to rebound, but said there was no weak sides in the competition this year.

"It's a really tough comp, we're not out of it by any means, obviously this doesn't help," Alexander told AAP.

"We picked up no bonus points and we can't take very much confidence out of that game, but we're still right in there.

"The sooner we learn the lessons the better. It's a long year, so we will be right."

Alexander nominated the breakdown as the area the Brumbies needed to focus on the most after they were comprehensively beaten there by the Crusaders.

"We definitely lost the battle at the breakdown, they slowed our ball down," Alexander said.

"You can never attack like you want to if you are losing the battle at the breakdown like that. Our reaction to turnovers, they were quicker at reacting."

Among the few positives for the Brumbies was the performance of young openside flanker Colby Faingaa and the strong showing by the scrum.

"They are the best scrum in the comp, we really tried to have a crack," Alexander said.

"But in saying that there's a lot more to rugby than just scrums and while we scrummed well the rest of our play not up to scratch.

"Our lineout wasn't very good. We set pretty high standards.

"The first two rounds the lineout was going well and it's slipped the last two weeks."

Alexander believed discipline was not so big a factor in the Crusaders game as it had been in the Brumbies two previous losses, though Giteau was sinbinned for a breakdown infringement during a first half in which five-eighth Dan Carter kicked four penalties.

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