Even before a ball was kicked in Super12, we were dismissed as a group of misfits with a few Canberra players thrown in. Yet as far as we were concerned, we had plenty to fight for. Our suspicion was that if we were hopeless, the rugby officials would quickly boot us out and set up another team in Perth, western Sydney or, more likely, in Melbourne.

I was named vice-captain, supporting Brett Robinson, the inaugural skipper, and appreciated the recognition.

We were underrated right through that first season, as the press kept using the ''misfits'' and ''rejects'' descriptions without recognising that the players they were denigrating were actually very good footballers. The Reds, for example, had let a guy like David Giffin fall through the cracks, but that didn't mean Giff wasn't an outstanding lock eventually playing fifty Tests. In my view, John Eales wouldn't have been the player he was without Giff, who called the lineouts in his first Test match as if he'd been doing so for a decade.

Another key addition was Troy Coker, whom I would have been on the phone to for two or three weeks before he finally agreed to join us.

We were a good team in 1996. We used the ball and it was just attractive footy to play and watch, which was handy, because Super12 promoted positive rugby. Bonus points rewarded teams scoring tries, and the ball was in play more because the laws really encouraged players and coaches to use the ball. The manner in which our crowds at Bruce Stadium grew provided a barometer for our success. In the first season they were modest not too shabby, but hardly full houses. We even played a game at Manuka Oval, which really was too small, but it had been the spiritual home of ACT rugby and the officials were loathe to desert it completely. In 1996, the Raiders rugby league team was coming to the end of the great run that had seen it win three premierships between 1989 and 1994. It was a dynamic team that had done much for Canberra's sporting identity, and had become so identified with Bruce Stadium that it was seen around town as the Raiders' ground. Initially, we were the poor cousins, but quicker than most expected we forged an identity of our own, to the point that our crowds, on average, were bigger than theirs.

The night we beat Auckland in 1996 remains one of the greatest in the history of ACT rugby. Auckland got off to a flying start, as Kiwi teams often do, but we reeled the Blues in and ended up winning comfortably. They did, though, end up scoring four tries and finishing within seven points of us, so they earned two bonus points.

It was an incredible win and one that I really enjoyed and not just because Auckland was undoubtedly the best provincial team in world rugby at that time.

In 1996 we ended up losing twice in South Africa in the third-last and second-last rounds, which meant we couldn't make the semi-finals. Rather than moping, we ended our debut year with a 70-26, nine-tries-to-three romp at home against Otago.

The Brumbies' 1997 season was really just an extension of what we'd started in 1996. We had absolute faith in Rod, his methods and the way we played. Everyone knew his job, everyone knew what he was doing wherever he was on the field; whether we were attacking or defending, everyone knew exactly what was expected of him. Crucially, we had the confidence to express ourselves on the training paddock and on the field. We became the first Super12 team to score fifty tries in a season, and eight of those came against the Waratahs, whom we obliterated 56-9. Only the unbeaten Blues were better than us, and that was simply because they had a fantastic group of players, including Zinzan Brooke, Sean Fitzpatrick, Michael Jones, Jonah Lomu and a young Carlos Spencer.

A lot of guys were coming off contract in 1997, as the two-year deals they signed in 1995 expired, but the Brumbies were solid. We all wanted to stay together, and we'd made a pact players and officials that we'd do all we could to see that happen.

In the end, the one person who left was Rod Macqueen, who at the end of August 1997 would get the offer he couldn't refuse: the Wallabies coaching job. I will never forget what he did for me, and for the Brumbies, the lessons he taught us. One of the most important was to ''smell the roses'' along the way.

If you work hard and set goals as a group, and you achieve them, then you enjoy them, he taught us. I remember before the semi-final in 1997, he actually presented each player with a single rose, to emphasise the fact that by making the final four we'd reached a goal we'd set ourselves.

At the end of the 1997 Super12 season, we celebrated in style. When we arrived back in Canberra from our defeat in Auckland, we were greeted by a big, happy crowd who almost made us feel as though we'd won. Then we all went up to Coolum, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, for a three-day siesta (we pooled our bonus money from the finals series and spent it on this trip), after which it was back to the national capital for a civic reception. Finally, everyone connected with the Brumbies including wives and partners, were invited to Rod's home at Collaroy on Sydney's northern beaches, where he laid everything on for us. Perfect weather, mellow music; we were celebrating what we'd accomplished, how we'd grown as a group, become true professionals. It was special. Rod was good at that.