Super Rugby round 13: Tokyo Sunwolves beat Queensland Reds in Japan

Humiliation on the world stage as Queensland Reds hit rock bottom, bumbling, fumbling and stumbling their way to defeat.

Reds' scrum half Ben Lucas takes the ball out of a scrum in the match against the Sunwolves.

The Queensland Reds team sank to their lowest ebb in years as they bumbled, fumbled and stumbled their way to a 63-28 defeat in Tokyo at the hands of a Sunwolves team that before today has not won a match this season and had never beaten an Australian team.

Winger Jordan Petaia, at 18 the youngest player on the field, played well for the Reds. The less said about the other 22 players used by Queensland the better. This was as bad a performance as they have strung together in many a season. And let’s not forget that recent seasons have been uniformly dismal for a once-proud side.

This was easily the worst defeat of Brad Thorn’s debut season of coaching and the coach too showed his inexperience by persevering with players who were clearly underperforming. He made no changes until halftime and by then the match had very nearly slipped away at 29-14. The try-count at the break was just two-apiece but the Reds had conceded penalties every time play came into their half.

They needed to be the first to score in the second half. They gave away another penalty in the 42nd minute to slip further behind at 32-14.

Right from the opening minute, when halfback Ben Lucas was charged down not once but twice as he attempted to clear the ball into touch, through to the final two minutes of play when Sunwolves left winger Hosea Saumaki scored not once but twice, the Reds played clueless, abysmal rugby.

Reds' wing Filipo Daugunu is tackled by Sunwolves' wing Hosea Saumaki.

It almost didn’t need Sunwolves goalkicker Hayden Parker to kick everything from everywhere — but he did, all 12 of his kicks going over, including the one where he snuck the ball over the crossbar after taking the kick several metres closer to the posts from where the penalty was awarded.

It almost didn’t need referee Egon Seconds to have a shocker, but he did anyway. The second Sunwolves try came from a clear forward pass that the match officials ruled okay, though up in the Sunwolves’ coaches box Jamie Joseph appeared to be giggling with embarrassment.

And then, when the Reds were having effectively their last real shot at winning the match, the Sunwolves illegally collapsed Queensland’s driving maul in the 61st minute, dived in off-side to prevent George Smith from scoring — and then Egon penalised Taniela Tupou for a clean-out that looked completely legitimate. It was, in a word, a Seconds-rate display of refereeing.

It didn’t matter, though. The Reds were in a mood to beat themselves. Even Petaia faltered in the 69th minute when he collected a Hamish Stewart cross field kick and then passed infield to Jono Lance for what should have been a try under the posts. Except that reserve Sunwolves fullback Jason Emery swooped for the intercept and set off for the other tryline. In the end Duncan Paia’aua had to take him high to deny him the touchdown, got it wrong, conceded a penalty try and got himself yellow carded.

When the smoke cleared at full-time, the try-count was only 5-4 in the Sunwolves’ favour, but Parker had smashed the Sunwolves’ pointscoring record by scoring 33 points from one try, seven penalty goals and five conversions.

The Reds might finish the season with four home matches out of six but realistically they needed to win today to give them a chance of topping the Australian conference. Ominously, they now play New Zealand side in three of their next four matches and their other game is against the Australian conference leaders, the Waratahs.

All week they had been warned not to take the Sunwolves lightly. They have threatened several times this season only to be worn away by the opposition but today they had everything going for them — including horrendous Queensland indiscipline.