Super Rugby 2016: Chiefs reduce Reds to rabble in record win

The Queensland Reds were reduced to impotent spectators as the Chiefs ran riot to beat them by 50-5 last night.

Lachlan Boshier of the Chiefs makes a break to score agains he hapless Reds.

The Queensland Reds were reduced to impotent spectators as the Chiefs ran riot to beat them by 45 points at Suncorp Stadium last night, the biggest win ever in Super Rugby history for the team from the Waikato.

It was the leader of the New Zealand conference against the team running next to last in the Australian conference but although Kiwi team have won 19 of 22 trans-Tasman matches this ­season, it’s doubtful the imbalance between the two national leagues has ever been more laid more bare.

All Black backrower and Chiefs captain Sam Cane played the diplomat as he insisted post-match that the scoreboard did not reflect the effort the Queenslanders put in, but eight tries to one tells a ­painful and inescapable tale.

One can only imagine what a defeat of that magnitude has done to the hopes of current co-coaches Matt O’Connor and Nick Stiles of becoming the Reds new coach.

“It’s relative to how good they are,” O’Connor said.

“They’re the best we’ve played. They exposed some deficiencies in our game and the intensity that they played at in the first half was hard to match.”

Captain James Slipper bemoaned Queensland’s exasperating run of losses this season.

“Of course I’m sick of it. I was sick of if the first time it happened. The fine detail just let us down, ” Slipper said.

The win momentarily takes the Chiefs to the top of the Super Rugby table but with the Lions to play the Kings, it almost inevitable that the team from Johannesburg will be roaring loudest with one round of the ordinary season to play. It’s doubtful that the Reds have put together a worse half of football than they did in the first half, as they were reduced to 13 players and conceded no fewer than five tries.

Despite all the pre-match talk being about the need to make a positive start, Queensland actually conceded a try within 95 seconds as Chiefs outside centre Seta Tamanivalu jinked through three defenders, Nick Frisby, Samu Kerevi and Curtis Browning, to score the easiest of tries.

That set the tone for the highest scoring half of rugby from the Chiefs in seven years and they came at such a rate that at times it was difficult to comprehend that the Reds were controlling the ball for long periods.

When Frisby kicked a penalty dead in goal, the Chiefs came storming back and with player after player offloading brilliantly, 10 times in all, the New Zealanders eventually ran tighthead Atu Moli in for the easiest of tries.

For a moment, it seemed that the Reds were digging in to make a stand. Number eight Browning broke the line with a meaty charge to provide the impetus for Queensland to work the ball back to the right where Kerevi broke the tackle and fed winger Chris Kuridrani, who broke through the defence of Aaron Cruden for a stirring try. Centre Henry Taefu missed the conversion but at 14-5 the Reds must have felt they had stemmed the bleeding.

In fact, they were soon to be awash with blood, and especially when they lost two players in two minutes to the sin bin. Frisby was first to go, so desperate to prevent Chiefs flanker Lachlan Boshier scoring a try between the posts that he illegally kicked the ball out of his hands. Barely had he taken his seat in the naughty chair than he had company after young fullback Jack Tuttle carelessly up­ended halfback Tawera Kerr Barlow as he chased his own midfield bomb.

The Reds had barely been able to contain the Waikato team when they were at full strength. They now were about to find out how difficult playing short-handed would be as All Black backrower Sam Cane scored as the seven-man Reds scrum conceded a tighthead, while Tamanivalu made it a double as the Chiefs took a quick tap five metres from the line and centre partner Anton Lienert Brown showed the value of slick hands under pressure. Talk about too many Chiefs.