St.George Queensland Reds beat Brumbies in final home game of 2017 Super Rugby season
The St.George Queensland Reds have secured a 16-15 win over the Brumbies in their Indigenous Round clash at Suncorp Stadium on Friday night.
At the 70-minute mark, the Reds trailed by 10 points but a late Hamish Stewart try and a Quade Cooper penalty goal after the final hooter saw them claim the one-point win in front of 13,264 fans.
Head Coach Nick Stiles said: “The Brumbies are playing finals, they’re top of the conference in Australia, so I was really pleased for our guys to come back from 15-6 down because we’ve wilted in the past against the Brumbies when we’ve got to those sort of score lines.”
“It was great to see the young guys who were out on that field in that last 10-15 minutes contribute to a tight win against good opposition. The next generation of Queensland footballers finished that game off for us.”
Departing stalwart Rob Simmons had an outstanding game at blindside flanker and was rewarded with the Frank Ivory Medal, a special Indigenous Round award presented to the Reds man of the match.
Stephen Moore overtook former All Blacks hooker Keven Mealamu as the second-most capped Super Rugby player of all time as he runs out for his 176th Super Rugby appearance.
Caleb Timu replaced Kane Douglas in the 54th minute to earn his Super Rugby debut.
Both sides had to contend with slippery and foggy conditions and ball handling was clearly affected as both struggled to string phases together.
The Brumbies played to the conditions early kicking the ball deep into the Reds half while the home side opted to attack with the ball in hand.
After 27 minutes the visitors finally broke the deadlock with a penalty goal to Wharenui Hawera.
Cooper responded five minutes later with his own shot at goal to level the scores at 3-3.
>From the restart a well-executed kick from Duncan Paia’aua put the Reds back in an attacking position and moments later Cooper slotted another penalty goal.
The Reds took a three-point lead at halftime, 6-3.
A scrum penalty nine minutes into the second stanza saw the Brumbies kick to the corner, maul the ball forward and claim a penalty try.
The Brumbies hit the lead with the first try of the match when Kyle Godwin pounced on a loose ball in the in goal.
As the match ticked past the 70-minute mark, Duncan Paia’aua sliced through before the Reds swung it back to the open side for Stewart’s try.
In the dying stages, a clever kick to the corner from Karmichael Hunt turned the Brumbies around before the Reds thwarted the visitors attempt to maul the ball forward.
Off the following scrum, the Reds backline ran a move that saw Izaia Perese slice straight through before the Brumbies scrambling defense conceded a penalty.
Cooper made no mistake with the shot at goal to send the Reds out winners in their final home fixture of the 2017 season.
St.George Queensland Reds 16 (Hamish Stewart try; Quade Cooper 3 pen goal; Cooper con) defeated Brumbies 15 (Kyle Godwin try, penalty try; Wharenui Hawera pen goal; Hawera con) at Suncorp Stadium, on Friday 7 July 2017.
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