The Brumbies have put a week of distraction behind them to take care of the Sunwolves 41-31 in their Super Rugby match at Gio Stadium.

The ACT team’s fifth victory of the season and their second in succession – the first time they’ve done that since rounds 14 and 15 last year – was never seriously in doubt against the undermanned Japanese visitors.

Missing from the Sunwolves’ line-up on Sunday were all their international players, along with coach Jamie Joseph, who is in charge of the Japanese national team.

It was far from a convincing win despite having star players David Pocock, Scott Sio and Allan Alaalatoa in the line-up after the club refused Wallabies coach Michael Cheika’s request to rest them.

Brumbies coach Dan McKellar controversially defied Cheika by starting the trio but they were all benched with more than 20 minutes remaining in preparation for the first Test against Ireland on June 9 at Suncorp Stadium.

It resulted in an improved crowd of 9521 after drawing the second worst turn out in their history against Melbourne in May.

Despite having 72 per cent possession in the first 40 minutes, the Brumbies only led 19-10 after tries from Pocock, Lachlan McCaffrey and Tom Banks.

Fullback Banks continued his hot form after being included in the Wallabies’ 33-man squad, scoring another superb running try following a similar effort against the Bulls in South Africa last week.

The Sunwolves sent a scare through the Brumbies camp by crossing through prop Hencus Van Wyk to reduce their deficit early in the second half before stepping up their attacking game.

Wingers Andrew Muirhead and overlooked Wallaby Henry Speight scored tries in opposite corners before Tom Cusack came off the bench to close out the game in the 58th minute.

Speight made it a double before fulltime, but the Sunwolves, who sit at the bottom of the overall ladder, never folded as flanker Edward Quirk and debuntat Kai Ishii scored consolation efforts.