First-year Super Rugby coach Dan McKellar owning ACT Brumbies' losses

He might be a first-year Super Rugby coach but Brumbies mentor Dan McKellar is making no excuses.

The buck stops with him.

McKellar emphasised the point after the Brumbies lost three straight home games for the first time since 2011, with a 27-24 loss to the Melbourne Rebels on Saturday.

The Brumbies have won just three of 10 games this season and look set to miss finals for the first time in six years.

McKellar has grown more frustrated with each loss and at his side's inability to capitalise on golden opportunities, but said it was his responsibility to get the team firing for 80 minutes.

The Brumbies leave for a two-week tour of South Africa on Monday and McKellar said he'll look to make personnel changes for clashes against the Johannesburg Lions and Pretoria Bulls.

McKellar has been coaching for more than a decade spent four seasons as a Brumbies assisant under former mentor Stephen Larkham.

The 41-year-old said there was no "quick fix" for the Brumbies' problems and all they could do was turn up on Monday morning and keep working.

"I’ve been coaching a long time now, I’ve been in difficult situations in the past and this is a tough spot but I didn't go into this job thinking it was going to be easy," McKellar said.

"I know there’s no silver bullet and know you’ve just got to keep working hard and fronting up and make sure that I lead from the front and things will turn.

"It’s if you start looking for quick fixes and blaming other people and looking for excuses, then it won’t [turn].

"As an assistant coach when Steve was the head coach, we worked very closely together, and I felt the losses then as much as I feel them now and that certainly won’t change."

The Brumbies played in front of their second-worst crowd in history against the Rebels, with just 5283 fans in the stands and McKellar acknowldged the losses aren't helping.

"Certainly our form is playing a part and I’ve got to front up and take ownership of that 100 per cent and I’ll never hide away from that," McKellar said.

"As a group we’ve got to learn and improve and get better and that’s my job and the assistant coaches job.

"We’ve got to drive that with the leaders and the boys have got to look inside themselves and make sure they’re doing everything they can to get better."

Brumbies co-captain Christian Lealiifano said the group have an opportunity to go away together and find some solutions.

"We’re sort of banging our heads up against a wall trying to make the same changes each week, just trying to get some sort of trigger," Lealiifano said.

"It will be good to get away but whether we’re sitting in a press conference in Joburg next Saturday night saying the same thing, we don’t know.

"Hopefully we can change some things and move forward."

The Brumbies have lost four games in a row and Lealiifano admitted he felt like the team had let down McKellar and his coaching staff with their recent performances.

"It's very important [we stick by Dan], he's working his arse off which is why we’re even more gutted," Lealiifano said.

"The coaching staff are doing all they can to give us everything, every sort of tool to be able to play the game we want to play, which is why I sit here really disappointing, because you’ve let your coach down.

"We’re working really really hard to change a lot of things and trying to find ways to be better and to grow.

"It’s really important for our group to continue to stick tight and I have no doubt the team will do that. We just really need to move forward and grow quicker than what we are."

SUPER RUGBY ROUND 14

Sunday: Johannesburg Lions v ACT Brumbies at Ellis Park, 1:15am.