Mowen's sombre swansong
Captain Ben Mowen's time at the Brumbies ended one game sooner than he would have liked as they went down to the Waratahs.
The former Wallabies loose forward is off to further his career in France, and was hoping to play in a second consecutive Super Rugby Final, but it was not to be as his side slumped to a 26-8 defeat to the Australian conference champions in Sydney on Saturday.
Mowen said that whilst the Waratahs deserved to win on the night, he was nonetheless very disappointed with the way his time at the Brumbies ended.
“That’s not the way we wanted to finish our season. The Waratahs deserve to go through they were more clinical than us tonight,” Mowen said.
“It’s been a pleasure playing with these guys for the last three years. This is a special group, we are proud of what we have achieved this year but sadly, we’ll never know if we could have been good enough to have a crack at the title,” he said.
He admitted that his side were shut down by the resolute Waratahs defence as they failed to score a single point in the second half.
"We had more than enough opportunities inside their 22 to come away with a lot of points and you've got to give credit to the way the New South Wales guys held on," Brumbies captain Ben Mowen said.
"They defended really well, they dismantled our maul which has been a real strength of ours and they're obviously the best defensive side in the competition for a reason," he added.