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Owen Finegan signed off on his Super
12 career in typical fashion ... with victory, a head-gash,
a canny sledge and the sarcastic thanks of referee Andrew
Cole for his help.
The battle-scarred forward brought down
the curtain on 10 years and 92 matches with the Brumbies
in Saturday night's entertaining 38-21 defeat of Queensland.
While it wasn't the fairytale farewell
Joe Roff enjoyed in the Brumbies' Super 12 final triumph
last year, Finegan's good-bye could hardly be more fitting.
Cole, relieved he would no longer be
ear-bashed by the chatty former Wallabies flanker, showed
his own tongue-in-cheek appreciation as the pair left
Suncorp Stadium.
"I gave Coley a fair bit of advice,"
the England-bound Finegan admitted. "That's been
one of the things in my career; I always like to help
the referees. Quite often they've needed a bit of help.
"I just thanked him for the game
and he thanked me for my refereeing. It was a mutual thank-you."
Frustrated Reds winger Wendell Sailor
was also on the end of Finegan's barbs in the second half.
Sailor, sledged often after being run
over by nimble halfback Matt Henjak early, was dispossessed
of the ball by the 33-year-old who followed up with: "It's
like stripping candy from a baby Dell!"
"It was all good fun banter,"
said Finegan, who sported four stitches above his left
eye after the match.
The only thing missing for the 55-Test
stalwart, who will play out his career with Matt Burke
at Newcastle in England, was a try. His tally of 30 is
the highest by a forward in the history of the competition.
The six-tries-to-three victory wasn't
enough to crowbar the Brumbies into an inconceivable play-offs
berth but it did win them the inaugural Rod Macqueen Cup.
It was Macqueen, the Wallabies 1999 World
Cup-winning coach, who lured the raw-boned Finegan to
Canberra from Sydney for the start of the Super 12 in
1996.
Finegan, who crossed for one of two tries
in the 1999 Cup decider against France, recalled the foundation
coach persuaded him during an "amateurish" Australian
Barbarians tour of Canada in late 1995.
"We had a few nights out on the
drink and I always had 3am and 4am conversations with
Rod," he said.
"But I don't know if he got much
sense out of us.
"This is a nice way to finish off."
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