Despite their brilliant Super Rugby campaign and a narrow grand final defeat, the Brumbies were the ''little brother'' at the Super Rugby awards in Sydney this week.

Being cast into the shadows left a sour taste in their mouths just a week after they played in the grand final.

Privately they were fuming and bemused that they weren't even represented at the awards announcement.

They won't say so publicly, but it must have confused them after they worked so hard to restore the club's broken pride.

The Brumbies won the team of the year and coach of the year prizes. However, while player of the year Michael Hooper and rookie of the year Israel Folau were paraded to the media, the Brumbies were the forgotten team.

It's understood they weren't even told of the awards or congratulated until after they had been announced.

There were 11 Brumbies in camp with the Wallabies at the same Sydney hotel the awards were presented in.

In previous seasons, there has been a function or lunch hosted by the ARU to present the winners with their prizes.

When the Reds won most of the awards last year, there was a lunch.

This year after the Brumbies' commanding season and their Australian conference win, there was a press conference. That was it. No fanfare.

No congratulations to the Brumbies for their campaign that finished with a five-point loss in the final.

The attention was all on Hooper and Folau - deserving winners in their categories, but both from the third-best Australian team: the Waratahs.

Sydney is the biggest rugby market in Australia. The ARU needs the Waratahs to be successful to generate interest and revenue.

It was suggested the ARU might have been saving costs by cutting the awards function.

But the Brumbies deserved some of the attention.

They shouldn't be shunted to the back corner at the end of the season.

Just last month, ARU boss Bill Pulver didn't contact Brumbies coach Jake White to tell him he had missed out on the Wallabies coaching job until after the announcement.

Ewen McKenzie beat White for the top job.

McKenzie immediately showed his intentions to reward form rather than reputations.

The 11 Brumbies were all kept as part of the 30-man squad for the Rugby Championship. It would have been 12 had Peter Kimlin not been injured.

That's despite the Brumbies' lack of international experience.

Tevita Kuridrani, Matt Toomua, Nic White, Scott Fardy and Scott Sio are all vying to make their international debuts.

It's a sign the Brumbies have turned things around in the past two years.

They had just three players in the Wallabies World Cup squad in 2011 and were at the bottom of the Australian pecking order.

When the Brumbies first started in 1996, they were the little brother to NSW and Queensland, the unwanted discards from the bigger states.

On the field, they've shaken that tag. It's just a shame they don't get the same recognition from the off-field powerbrokers.