Everyone he saw had their own reason to be a foundation ACT Brumby. Brett Robinson and David Giffin were the Queensland defectors, lashed by high-ranking officials who said their move to Canberra was a "career-killer".

A gangly Stephen Larkham and a determined George Gregan had big dreams, but they were dreams in their infancy. To outsiders the team was made up of misfits and rejects. Inside the rooms there was a different feeling.

So hard-nosed Noriega, who uprooted his family from Buenos Aires, couldn't hold back the tears when he became Brumby No. 1 on the eve of round one, 1996.

"He spoke about what he was prepared to sacrifice, moving his wife and kids away from their home," said Brumby No. 2 Marco Caputo. "That was the moment that it all hit me.

"Some guys probably couldn't understand his broken English. But everyone understood his passion and emotion. That's what the Brumbies meant. It was special to everyone for whatever reason you had inside, and it bonded us all together."

Noriega's speech still rings loudly in Caputo's ears 25 years later. It was the start of a tradition for the pioneering Brumbies: a nominated player telling their teammates what the Brumbies meant to them the day before a game.

They had hoped to hear some of those tales again this weekend, regaling war stories of their "Melrose Place" apartments in Kingston and pre-season camps at Jindabyne.

The scheduled Brumbies' clash against the Cape Town Stormers on Saturday was supposed to be a celebration of the first Brumbies team as well as the insane highs of Super Rugby domination and international triumphs, the heartbreak of losing teammates or forced retirements and the lows of sacked coaches, player divides and off-field dramas.

The reunion has been postponed because of coronavirus, but the bulk of the original Brumbies walked down a 1996 memory lane with The Canberra Times this week.

They spoke of the gathering at Rod Macqueen's house to decide the jersey design and David Giffin turning down a $40,000 offer from Queensland to take a $15,000 Brumbies gamble.

Or the time the team stayed at the Enoggera Army barracks in Brisbane before the days of five-star hotels.

"We learnt a lot about Marco Caputo. His mum must have done all his washing up until that point, and everyone got sick," says Brumby No. 9 Gregan.

Owen Finegan (Brumby No. 8) adds: "Half of the team ended up with boils. We didn't know we had to take our own sheets. I've never seen blokes so relieved to get to the Brisbane Travelodge a day earlier than planned."

But when things really kicked off, the Brumbies were the hottest ticket in town, players stopped in the streets by punters desperate to get their hands on the $15 pass. It all started with Macqueen calling players to offer them an opportunity.

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"Rod called me and said: 'do you want to be a part of this'," said foundation captain Brett Robinson (Brumby No. 20) "I always say to my kids now that the biggest challenge is taking a risk for the first time. At the time, people thought we were mad.

"They said: 'who's this team, why would you go there?' I remember [then Queensland coach] John Connolly telling me I'd never be anything in Canberra."

Connolly was within his rights to be a Brumbies doubter. His powerful Queensland team had dominated Super 10 before rugby union went professional in 1996. He wasn't alone, either.

South African rugby supremo Louis Luyt said the Brumbies were unworthy of playing against his Springboks-laden Transvaal side in round one. He predicted Transvaal would win by 100.

"They had rockstars of world rugby. Francois Pienaar lifted the World Cup less than a year earlier," Caputo said. "I think there was an all in brawl in the first or second scrum. I went off to get a few stitches and that made it real." The Brumbies went on to win 13-9.

The script others had written for the Brumbies, who were supposed to be simply making up the numbers in Super 12, had been ripped up and thrown away in round one.

The players, thrown together from different backgrounds and circumstances, and Macqueen had bigger ideas. Macqueen saw a chance to embrace professionalism and put together a puzzle with pieces from the ACT, NSW and Queensland.

Players like Finegan, who was the player of the year in the first season, came to Canberra to further their careers. Robinson paused his medical studies and Finegan, an electrician, took leave without pay. "I played a few games off the bench in two years for NSW," Finegan said. "Rod said I had a good chance to play No. 6 in Canberra, but didn't guarantee anything.

"I played my first Test at the end of 1996. There was a feeling of freshness and Rod made us believe we were deciding our own fate."

The ACT had beaten NSW for the first time in 1994 and tasted recent success against Ireland and Argentina, so the stage was set for a rugby revolution.

"If you're part of the decision making, you believe in it," Macqueen said. "The players were involved in everything. At one stage we had a cow pattern on our training jerseys. I guess it was a bit of fun.

"I thought we had the ingredients from day one, it was just a matter of putting it together." That started with a list of 25 potential names for rugby's new boys.

Tough-as-nails prop Geoff "the Duke" Didier (Brumby No. 23) remembers being in the room when the decision was made. By then Didier was 36 years old and nearing the end of a career having already played for the Wallabies.

"It was a Saturday morning. The Cockatoos, the Senators, the Redbacks ... they had everything on the list. Rod said: 'what about the Brumbies' and I laughed," Didier said.

"If looks could kill. We took a break before we voted and he got me in the corner and said, 'listen Duke, do you want to play this year?'. I said of course I do.

"He said: 'Yeah, I know ... I really like the name Brumbies.' And I looked at him and said: 'Yes, so do I.' We had the vote and the Brumbies got over the line."

Didier was on board quickly, helping Peter Besseling write the team song after taking over the microphone at Jindabyne team get together. "I wanted to get in there: 'Standing at the coalface, taking on the best, proud to be Australian with a Brumby on our chest'," Didier said.

The players settled on the jersey design at another meeting at Macqueen's place and the decision was taken to the ACT Rugby Union board.

"At our first board meeting we had to decide on the jersey and I asked for the designs," said inaugural president David Lewis. "I turned around to [chief executive Mark Sinderberry] and asked which one the players picked. I said: 'Gentleman, if it's good enough for the players, it's good enough for me. Do you agree?' The one thing that caused a bit of a stir was there was no ACT coat of arms, so we added that on."

And so the Brumbies were born, with the coat of arms of on the jersey, and the players suited up for round one at home against the might of Transvaal.

Macqueen thought differently to most coaches, breaking the field into segments and driving innovation for lineouts and kick-offs which stunned Transvaal.

"Chris Russouw, their hooker, was saying: 'ref, ref! watch these f------ tricks'," Giffin (Brumby No. 4) laughs. "Looking back ... Rod took a team that didn't exist, got players from all over the country and built something that was very, very impressive."

Giffin was just happy to be on the field. He was behind the likes of John Eales, Rod McCall and Garrick Morgan in Queensland, so decided the Brumbies were worth the risk.

"I never really considered going anywhere else ever again. I had opportunities to go back to Queensland, to NSW, but never entertained them," Giffin said. "To this day I think what we had was special."

Connolly says: "It was a pivotal point in Australian rugby. We wanted to keep Giff ... we'd signed him but the professional contracts weren't ready. You can't begrudge anyone who went for opportunity.

"I used to enjoy watching Gregan and Larkham play, unless we were playing against them. There must be something in the water down there. And their crowds are unbelievable.

"I remember once I was doing a press conference and some journalist annoyed me about the great crowds in Canberra. I said, 'yeah, that's because everyone's got two heads.'

"Well, the crowd absolutely gave it to me. I came back out at half-time, I had people throwing stuff at me. I was picking pizza off my blazer for weeks and hotdogs out of my hair. I suppose I deserve what I got."

Transvaal were out of the way. The Wellington Hurricanes were next and then the Auckland Blues, the eventual 1996 champions. The Brumbies won both trans-Tasman matches, starting the season with three wins from three games in Canberra. "We lost to Auckland when I was playing for Queensland. So when we [the Brumbies] beat them [40-34], that's when we became confident," Robinson said.

"Macqueen and the Brumbies were light years ahead in terms of preparation, planning, innovation, analysis and performance. Other teams couldn't work out how we were doing it."

Things were going according to plans after setting bold ambitions in the pre-season. Media manager David Pembroke came up with the idea of being the "best provincial team in the world". Some still call Pembroke "Global" because of his vision, which drew initial giggles before turning into a club-wide mission.

Ultimately the 1996 dream fell short. The Brumbies won seven of 11 games, but finished fifth and just missed the finals. But the foundations had been laid and the Brumbies hosted a home semi-final in 1997.

"We grew up watching the great Green Machine. Laurie Daley, Mal Meninga, Chicka Ferguson, Dean Lance ... and then they came to watch us," Gregan said. "The Raiders were the big ticket and we got that following too, which was great."

Rod Kafer (Brumby No. 15) adds: "We had a routine of coffee or breakfast in Kingston. On the Monday or Tuesday of the semi-final all the tickets were gone. There were people coming up to me who I'd never met, recognising us for the first time and asking us for tickets.

"I played for the ACT against the All Blacks in 1992 at Manuka Oval and there were 4000 people there. In 1993 we played against South Africa at Bruce Stadium and 3500 turned up. To see the game come from that in four years and have people begging for tickets ... it was remarkable."

They beat the Hurricanes to book a ticket to the final, but fell short of their title goal again when they lost to the Blues in the championship match. Macqueen left, Eddie Jones arrived and the Brumbies won a breakthrough title in 2001 and another in 2004. Wallabies were everywhere and the likes of Larkham (Brumby No. 13), Gregan, Matt Giteau (Brumby No. 73) and George Smith (Brumby No. 52) played more than 100 Tests for Australia.

It hasn't all been smooth sailing since those early years, of course. The divide between players and coach David Nucifora in 2004, off-field boardroom dramas of 2016 and constant threats of being moved away from Canberra. Seeing the club struggle was a sore point for the originals.

"We always felt like we had to prove ourselves," Robinson said. "In the early years if your head was growing beyond its means, the team would absolutely pull you apart. We knew if we started to think that way we would become yesterdays men.

"What I observed happening through those [lean] years was there was a recruitment of players who felt like the Brumbies weren't a vehicle, that it was just a holding ground because they were Wallabies. I felt the selfishness, it seemed like there wasn't the same spirit that I can see is back there today."

There were signs of a revival before coronavirus. Dan McKellar's men won five of six games and were playing a style of rugby which reminded many of the halcyon days.

McKellar invited Gregan into the inner sanctum at a pre-season camp this year to speak about history and what it meant to be a Brumby. "It reminded me of what makes the place special. Everyone felt welcome," Gregan said.

"It didn't matter if you were a veteran or a young kid in his first year. Everyone was a part of it, they wanted to know what makes a good team and the history. That's what you love."

What made the Brumbies great from day one of the inaugural season in 1996? "We thought about the game differently," Macqueen said. "We had special players, and it was a special part of my life. There were no politics."

Finegan added: "We were written off. If you tried to do it again ... I don't think you could. The stars aligned."

Gregan says: "We stayed true to how we wanted to play. We were quick learners. In the high country, wild horses are meant to run free. That was a big part of us. We wanted to be unique, it was a blank canvass."

And Kafer: "We felt a sense of pride. To hear people around the world say I loved the way the Brumbies played. The notion of misfits ... Ewen McKenzie, David Giffin, Owen Finegan and Brett Robinson weren't misfits. But we liked that term because it served a purpose.

"I didn't see us as misfits, it was a misnomer. We were just diverse and that's what brought us together."

What does it mean to be a Brumby? "Nothing was handed to you on a platter, you worked for it. There's a selflessness to the Brumbies culture I love. It's not about rockstars," Robinson said.

"The Brumbies were a fork in the road for my life. It's had so many ripple effects on me, my family, my career and friendships. I'm indebted to the organisation. I was an average footballer who had an opportunity, and I took it. I got to play for my country, captain my country and captain the Brumbies. I was blessed."