Ben Mowen keeping calm and trusting in the process against the Lions

AFTER 10 years of chasing the dream, Ben Mowen was always going to let the chest puff out and the spine tingle during the national anthem.

AFTER 10 years of chasing the dream, Ben Mowen was always going to let the chest puff out and the spine tingle during the national anthem. A tear? Hey, who knows.

But then, there would be no maniacal first five minutes as a Wallaby. After a long and winding career, the cold equation for success had long since been drummed into Mowen. Head over heart, process over passion.

After a long and winding career, the cold equation for success had long since been drummed into Mowen. Head over heart, process over passion.

"I remember reading an article from Georgie Gregan when he was captain, and he said emotion plays a part but it's not everything, it's all about process and this and that," Mowen said this week.

"I remember reading it at stage stage thinking: "mate, that's an absolute load of crap, how can you get to that stage it is not just about passion? It has to be passion".

"The reality is, it can't be. If you are relying on emotion, it can lead to some poor decisions or you're going to be all over the shop.

"It has to be process driven. You have to be very detailed about what your job is, and you just go and bloody do it.

"I guess that's another thing that comes with the maturity of being 28, and going through a fair bit to get here."

Mowen played his Test debut against the British and Irish Lions last Saturday in Brisbane, not that you'd know it.

He executed his processes - or "played well" for us simple folk - so strongly, Mowen looked like he was running around in his 50th Test, not his first.

It wasn't a performance to wrestle the headlines away Israel Folau or Kurtley Beale but Mowen's hard graft in defence, and particularly at the breakdown, was certainly valued by his Wallaby teammates and coaches.

He made 14 tackles, hit rucks all night and gave Mike Phillips nightmares.

Take another look, too, at whose quick hands gave Folau the last pass and space for his second try.

Few Wallaby debutants, if any, have seemed so composed and comfortable in gold.

"That's just me now. I have played 70-odd Super games, have been around a fair while now," Mowen explains.

Mowen lists the many hiccups on the road to his Test debut, one he felt as recently as last year was a fast-approaching dead end.Major injuries, moving on from two provinces, deafening silence when Test squads are named. Rejection.

"I have had stages where you are told you're not wanted, and but I've had stages where things are going really well," he says.

"So I have been through a variety of situations, and it has allowed me to become very centred. I tend to not let too much bother me.

"I have found as a leader at provincial level, that has set me up really well to relate to guys, but but it has also set me up well at this level, because i'm not nervous about what could or couldn't happen.

"I have been through those situations that are good and bad, and I know how to work my way out of them.

"Going intoSaturday nightI was extremely relaxed. I knew what I wanted to do in the game. I felt I was just going to go do my job.

"As basic as it is when I break it down, I just had to do my job in a different jersey."

Easier said than done in a Lions series, however. This was no lung-buster friendly against Fiji.

A stadium of rabid Lions and Wallabies supporters lifted the roof with noise when the players ran on.

It would have been easy to let best intentions slide, and let the red blood loose. Mowen's maturity was tested.

"I was always going to let myself enjoy the anthem, but then straight after it was just into my job. What do I have do? What is my next process? What are the structures at play here? That's the way you have to think the entire time," Mowen says.

"The passion and the fire and everything is there, but that's one of the lessons I've had in my career: if you let emotion rule everything, often it gives you a lot but it takes away a lot. You can have really big flat spots in your games.

"You have to be on task the entire time. You can't be relying on emotion to do things."

Test coaches often say their job doesn't change a lot whether a team wins or loses; it's about putting all the puzzle pieces in the right places to win the next one.

Calm heads have remained inside the Wallabies camp this week in Melbourne, but Mowen understands there's more at play tonight than just a Test result.History - good or bad - beckons.

Lions tours are so rare the results are never forgotten, particularly by the losing team.

"That's something we addressed from week one in camp. Various guys came in and talked to us, and the guys who'd lost the series in 89 are still filthy about it," Mowen says.

"That hit home for the guys. Once it's gone, that's it. That's it for us, because you don't get to do it again.

"None of us want to be going to reunions or whatever in 12 years talking about how close we came, but lost.

"We will go through our strategies and stuff like that, but there'll be a huge hint of desperation. We will be able to find extra gears."

Passion and process. Equal at last.

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