Credit where due. Against quality opposition and backs against the wall, the first 50 minutes of that game were of high standard in almost all aspects of Reds' play and one of the best sustained periods of play the Reds have composed since 2011-12. They looked a different team - and differently coached - for most of the match.
There can be no doubt the Lions were complacent off the bat and made many early uncharacteristic errors (as the Chiefs more rarely did the week before), but almost out of nowhere the Reds high quality of offensive defence (ie, not only making tackles but gaining ground, loose ball, penalties, slowing the opposition from the quality of tackle made, etc) rattled them big time in a way the Tahs had singularly failed to do the previous week.
Where the fuck did all this come from? Let's just leave it as a mystery with its due pleasures for now.
If it can be sustained - and we have to be very cautious over that speculation - then the Reds don't have too bad a run home from here. The Rebels look on a downtrend path - they were singularly awful vs the Stormers - the Tahs are volatile and have a very tough run against quality opposition in the next period and the Brumbies are just taking Larkham's attack-less legacy to its logical conclusion, grinding themselves, by their own hand, into the dust.
So if the Reds can continue as they have finally begun on April 28, they could conceivably end up near the top of the Australian Super conference. Nowhere near the genuine elite, but at least a hint of better light glinting back over a far horizon for those of us whose confidence and hope is almost irrecoverably dead.
