LONG READ Will the real Queensland Reds please stand up

It’s taken over a month, but the real Queensland Reds have finally stood up and reclaimed their place at the summit of Australian rugby. Their dominant 35-15 win over interstate rivals New South Wales was as rampant as it was clinical, and ensured most if not all of the 20,072 in attendance – their biggest crowd since the 2021 Super Rugby AU final – will be back when the Reds host the Western Force on 29^th March. We’ve at last seen what was expected from Les Kiss’ vaunted side.

In swatting away the Waratahs, they didn’t just live up to NSW coach Dan McKellar’s cheeky “best team in the comp” label, they picked up the gauntlet thrown down before them.

This has not been a swift process. Widely tipped to challenge for the Super Rugby crown, the Reds outgunned Moana Pasifika and ground their way to victory over the Force, before a reality-check comedown in Christchurch, where the Crusaders cantered to a 43-19 win. If the Reds really were going to be the top Australian team in the competition, and one of the best outright, they were still a way off.

And that uncertainty – plus McKellar’s rapid move for New South Wales to assume ‘underdog’ status – certainly helped hype the latest iteration of Australian rugby’s oldest rivalry.

The nation’s presumptive best team, back at home after a thumping in New Zealand, to host the only remaining unbeaten outfit in the tournament, but one still very much in rebuild mode. Oh, and the NSW coach also happens to be a former Queensland prop.

For almost 20 minutes, the contest lived up to the hype. The Waratahs scored first, but after Andrew Kellaway copped a yellow card for a lifting tackle on Harry Wilson, it was like the Queensland forwards saw this as an affront.

Just as there was no escaping the short slanging match between Wilson on the field and Kellaway in the naughty chair – Wilson would later explain he was angry at himself for “getting smashed” – the Reds lifted their intensity and their directness, and from there the Waratahs had few answers.

It’s hard to stop a rolling maul if you stand there and watch it.

Wilson scored the Reds’ second try, bouncing off Waratahs centre Joey Walton to crash over, but the real statement moment came just before half-time, when a bog-standard lineout on the Waratahs 22 became an instant highlight reel for the Reds, and an embarrassing review subject for the away forwards.

A beautifully constructed maul found scarcely a shred of NSW resistance. Worryingly, the rear pod of Waratahs forwards held position initially and didn’t follow the drive, before being swept aside. What resulted was five Reds heavies literally running forward with Waratahs scrum-half Teddy Wilson doing his best to hold on. It was perhaps a small mercy the maul did veer left to crash over the line. Had it stayed straight, Wilson would likely have been a speedbump.

For everything this try said about the Reds’ hunger, it said a lot about the Waratahs too. Taniela Tupou was far from alone in the beaten pack, but the sight of him standing off and never engaging in the maul defence when his size and bulk was most needed was every bit as embarrassing as McKellar said it was post-match.

And it wasn’t even that he didn’t engage – he never got back onside to even be in position.

“You’ve just got to put your head in the maul and stop it,” NSW captain Hugh Sinclair said when asked about it in the press conference.

“It’s hard to stop a rolling maul if you stand there and watch it,” McKellar interjected.

For Queensland though, this score was just one of many elements which showed they will be every bit as good as pre-season expectations had suggested.

The first try, to full-back Heremaia Murray, came from a fantastic piece of game awareness and vision on the run, exploiting Kellaway’s absence in the sin bin to chip into unguarded space and gallop home. The Reds scored three converted tries in 14 first-half minutes to take a dominant lead into the break, and two more in 20 minutes afterwards to ice the game.

The important thing that we didn’t catastrophise last week. These guys kept a level head that we are still going okay, one game like that wasn’t going to throw us off how we wanted to plan our game.

And it’s worth noting all five tries were converted. Fly-half Tom Lynagh, quickly establishing himself as one of the toughest young players in the competition, has kicked 15 from 15 over his three games so far. Yet to take a penalty attempt, Lynagh kicked seven conversions from seven in the big win over Moana Pasifika, three from three against the Force the following week, didn’t play in the loss to the Crusaders, and then maintained his 100% record in the grudge match on Saturday.

As a team, Queensland lead the competition with 19 conversions from 20 attempts (and no penalty attempts) for a 95% success rate which is more than 15% ahead of the next best marksmen. If you can turn five points into seven more than anyone else, then confidence has to build within your squad.

Kiss allows himself to take little credit for the Reds’ rise. The successor to Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt was never going to be decided by this sole head-to-head, but Kiss still wanted no part of suggestions the job was now his to lose.

Equally, Queensland’s rebound from the Christchurch beating wasn’t so much anything Kiss changed himself, but rather what the players identified.

“The important thing that we didn’t catastrophise last week,” Kiss explained.

“These guys kept a level head that we are still going okay, one game like that wasn’t going to throw us off how we wanted to plan our game, and I take my hat off to Tate (McDermott) and Fraser (McReight) and the leadership group, Harry (Wilson) and ‘Faess’ (Matt Faessler) – they just kept us on track.

“That was critical for us, that we just didn’t think that everything was wrong. Just a few things went wrong and we corrected the right things, and these boys, they took that forward and made sure that happened.”

Dare we say it, this was a very Schmidt-like post-match comment.

And McKellar? Interestingly, he doubled down on his “best team in the comp” praise of the Reds while admitting his side still has a lot of catching up to do.

“When they get their game going, they’re as good as anyone,” he said. “Everyone sort of thought that was a bit tongue in cheek, but I was being honest.

“When they’re playing on the front foot and Tate McDermott gets out, they get their offload game going, their support game is excellent. They’re as good as anyone, and they showed that tonight.”

They certainly did. Queensland travel back to New Zealand this week to face the Highlanders on Saturday, where once again they have a chance to show pre-season expectations were well placed.