Following a 31-14 victory for the Reds over the Highlanders, here are our five takeaways from the Super Rugby Pacific encounter at Suncorp Stadium on Friday.

The top line

The Reds kick-started their season with an ultimately comfortable victory over the Highlanders, who succumbed to a second successive defeat.

Les Kiss’ men began the campaign with a disappointing performance against the Waratahs but, following a bye week, they came into this clash with renewed vigour. They impressed in the opening half-hour, going over twice through Fraser McReight and Matt Faessler.

Although Adam Lennox responded for the Highlanders, the Reds restored their 12-point buffer through Tim Ryan’s score. Lucas Casey touched down to give the New Zealanders hope, but two tries in five minutes from Lukhan Salakaia-Loto and Vaiuta Latu sealed the win for the Queensland-based outfit.

Kiss v Joseph

A precursor to the Bledisloe Cup later in the year perhaps? It has already been confirmed that Reds boss Kiss will take over at the Wallabies after the Super Rugby season has ended, and he could be joined in the Test arena by Jamie Joseph.

The Highlanders boss is competing with Dave Rennie for the job, but this was perhaps not the greatest audition as his side succumbed to a disappointing defeat in Brisbane. However, you rather suspect that the team’s early season results will not determine his fate.

Despite going down to successive losses – after a magnificent opening round triumph over the defending champion Crusaders – he is still doing a fine job with the weakest New Zealand franchise.

Even if they weren’t close on the scoreboard, there was enough to like about elements of the visitors’ game. The scrum was particularly excellent, albeit they didn’t get the reward they should have got from the officials, while the defensive lineout gave them opportunities.

The Highlanders also created a number of attacking opportunities but their execution let them down and the Reds managed to secure some key turnovers. Ultimately, the battle was won by Kiss, whose side were just far more clinical and got plenty of joy in the aerial game with the visiting back three struggling.

Wallabies 10 battle solved?

Making his first Super Rugby Pacific appearance in almost two years, Carter Gordon slipped back seamlessly into the pivot position after an injury-plagued stint in rugby league. Of course, it is not his first match since returning to the 15-a-side code having featured for the Wallabies in their defeat to Italy in November last year, but it feels like this is when the serious work starts for the playmaker.

The fact that he was selected for the national team despite not playing a game for the Reds shows how highly he’s rated, but Gordon still knows that he has to perform this season. The early signs were positive, however, with the fly-half showing his range of skills and making the right decisions at the right times. He is a classy operator and, after the struggles in the 10 shirt in 2025, could well be the answer to their problems.

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Officiating inaccuracies

With Super Rugby’s preference for a fast game and to make it such that it is a free-flowing spectacle, there is always going to be a trade-off, and that was definitely the case here. There were quite a number of inaccuracies from both the referee and the TMO which made you question whether making hasty decisions worth it – certainly the Highlanders won’t think so, who bore the brunt of the bad calls.

The decision not to award the visitors a try when there was more than enough evidence to overturn the ‘no try’ on-field call has already caused the most controversy, but there were a number of little moments which contributed to the momentum being switched. For example, in successive rucks in the first half, the Reds clearly sealed off the ball with a Highlanders jackaller in place – a couple of phases later, the hosts crossed the whitewash.

Former referee Jaco Peyper recently talked about having to hit certain metrics around ball-in-play time when he was in the middle and you wonder whether the officials in Super Rugby have been given targets. Turnovers, providing they kept the game moving, were rewarded, even when in one instance a Highlanders player went in at a rather dodgy angle at the breakdown.

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That extended to the TMO, which the competition is trying to limit the impact of. That was certainly the case in the build-up to McReight’s try where there was no arms used in a tackle on Josh Flook with potential head contact. It possibly wasn’t a yellow card but to state there was ‘no foul play’, as the TMO did rather hastily, was a bit far-fetched.

This is not to blame the officials as, when you are told to speed up the game, come to decisions quickly and to increase the ball in play, there are inevitably going to be more inaccuracies, but it felt a bit much on Friday. If players, coaches and fans are happy then that’s fine but it doesn’t feel as though that balance has been struck.

Test watch

After an abysmal start to the season against the Waratahs, a few players made better statements in this encounter. The stars were obviously in the back-row where two starting Wallabies reside in McReight and Harry Wilson. Unsurprisingly, both were exceptional here, but they joined in a fine loose trio performance by Joe Brial, who was physical and abrasive.

In the backline, we have already mentioned Gordon, but outside of him, Hunter Paisami and Flook linked nicely at centre, and Ryan was a livewire on the wing, while off the bench there was a big impact from talented youngster Latu and versatile back Filipo Daugunu.

As for the Highlanders, Timoci Tavatavanawai was once again a beast in midfield and we do hope that he gets more game time for the All Blacks this season. With Joseph in charge, that would be a distinct possibility.

Another international, Ethan de Groot, also impressed as visitors’ scrum dominated, but it was less impressive from the Test hopefuls. Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens and particularly Caleb Tangitau both have their supporters but they really struggled in the air and made plenty of errors.

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