by Paul Cook - Nobody gave the ACT Brumbies a hope this time last year. After finishing 13th in the 2011 season, they parted company with their second coach in a year, lost their star player Matt Giteau overseas alongside bags of test experience with the departures of Mark Chisholm, Rocky Elsom and Stephen Hoiles. There wasn’t a lot of love going around for the Canberra based side. Despite the arrival of World Cup winning coach Jake White, the feeling was that the Brumbies simply didn’t have enough quality or experience left on board to make any kind of impact on the competition and that opinion was given further credence to many when White made the left-field appointment of Ben Mowen – deemed surplus to requirements by the Waratahs – as his captain. The sound of humble pie being hastily slurped across the country by media and pundits alike then, must have been music