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Match Highlights: Record breaker Higginbotham inspires Reds to comeback win over Blues

A milestone double by try-scoring forward Scott Higginbotham has delivered the Queensland Reds a thrilling 29-28 Super Rugby win over the Blues.

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France-bound Higginbotham scored in either half in his final match for the Reds at Suncorp Stadium on Friday to ensure a victorious send-off for captain Samu Kerevi, who is being widely tipped for a move to Japanese club Suntory after this year’s World Cup.

Higginbotham’s first-half try came on the back of some Kerevi brilliance and made him the first forward to score 40 Super Rugby tries.

The 32-year-old then scored in the 77th minute with Bryce Hegarty nailing the conversion to snap a 15-match losing streak for the Reds against New Zealand opposition.

The victory appeared highly unlikely after the Blues charged to a 21-5 lead after 23 minutes.

Blues captain Blake Gibson opened the scoring after just three minutes and then Tanielu Tele’a and Augustine Pulu crossed for tries either side of Higginbotham’s firs t try of the night.

The Reds recovered from their dire opening 20 minutes to turn the tide of the match and closed within nine points when Taniela Tupou, who’d been denied a try earlier in the half, crashed over following a mountain of pressure inside the Blues’ 22.

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Hegarty’s penalty on the stroke of halftime made it 21-15 to the Blues at the break.

The Reds fullback then crossed for his fifth try of the season at home to put the hosts ahead for the first time in the game.

Pulu’s second on the back of a Tupou penalty put the New Zealanders clear again by six and the Blues halfback thought he had a hat-trick only for a video review to reveal he’d failed to properly release the ball after being tackled by Reds’ winger Filipo Daugunu before jumping up to dive over the tryline.

The Blues’ then went down to 14 men when Dalton Papali’i was shown a yellow card in the 66th minute when referee Brendon Pickerill lost patience with the number of infringements by the visitors.

While the Reds failed to take advantage of their opponents being a man down, they kept coming and claimed their sixth win of a difficult campaign.

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The out of contention Reds finish their season against the Australian conference-leading Brumbies next Saturday in Canberra.

AAP

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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LONG READ Mick Cleary: 'Borthwick needs to have faith in Marcus Smith' Mick Cleary: 'Borthwick needs to have faith in Marcus Smith'
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