Tyro Fraser McReight gets tingles every time he watches a replay of the pulsating final 20 seconds of the Queensland Reds’ Super Rugby AU triumph.
His heartrate reacts almost instinctively to each pick-and-drive at the tryline, the Taniela Tupou surge and finally James O’Connor’s dive for the winning try.
Watch every minute of Super Rugby Trans-Tasman on Stan Sport. Start your Free Sport Trial Now
McReight isn’t a detached spectator watching vision of himself leaping all over O’Connor, his facial contortions of joy or thrusting multiple fist pumps at the roaring crowd at Suncorp Stadium.
He’s back in the moment reliving the 19-16 thrill all over again.
“Personally, I’m still processing everything that happened. It was pretty hectic and none of the boys had experienced anything like that,” McReight said.
“When I watch the last 15-20 seconds, I can still feel the tingles, the moment of euphoria and the pure ecstasy when James scored the try. That was pretty special.
“I’ll take that to my grave.”
Sport is weird. You don’t play another NFL game six days after winning the Super Bowl. Nor do cricketers don the whites for a tour game a week after the Ashes have been won.
McReight, 22, and the Reds have climbed one Everest and now have another peak to climb. It will be a scramble at first because it is extremely hard to see the Queenslanders being mentally in the right place to beat the Highlanders in Dunedin on Friday night when Super Rugby Trans-Tasman kicks-off.
Fast-forward to May 22 against the champion Crusaders at Suncorp Stadium and it will be even-money even if blind sports bookies will disagree.
The sports bookies will end up with egg on their faces after basically framing a Super Rugby TT market that all but predicts no Aussie team will beat a Kiwi team.
The Reds have a box of eggs. So do the ACT Brumbies.
“(Coach) Brad (Thorn) knew we were going to celebrate and he gave us that freedom," McReight said.
“What we achieved was something truly special but that’s only half our story. The job is not done.
“We had a tough gym session (on Tuesday) to sweat out the celebrations and now we’re into a quick-turnaround-game against the Highlanders in Dunedin.
“We sort of got shown how the betting markets view us. We’re not even in the top five so we’re going in as sort of an underdog.”
Just how young, unscarred and positive is this breed of modern Reds player is typified by Michael Hooper’s heir apparent as openside flanker for the Wallabies.
McReight is only young enough to remember the strong Reds’ performances against Kiwi sides from 2019 not the debacles in seasons before that.
It’s a strong mindset because the 24-20 loss to the Crusaders in Christchurch in March last year, when the Reds scored four tries-to-three, was a real marker just 10 days before the full Super Rugby competition was shutdown by COVID-19.
The Reds have won 11 home games straight at “Fortress Suncorp” since that night and learnt how to win in tight finishes.
“We were probably a team that didn’t know how to win a tight one at that stage (in early 2020). That’s the big area of improvement in this side,” McReight said.
“We’ve had a lot of practice throughout this season to show the fight at the end of games.
“We actually had the perfect practice against the Western Force, learnt our lessons and took them into the final.”
When centre Josh Flook got held up over the tryline on full-time in Perth without a single Reds’ player in support, the tough loss stung.
“One of the things that showed our cool in the final in those closing seconds was everyone being aware they couldn’t be held-up over the tryline or it would be game over,” McReight said.
“Don’t get held up...all the boys knew.”
READ MORE:
FATE REVEALED: Wallaroos World Cup draw confirmed
BOUNCE BACK: Brumbies out for Final revenge
LESS IS MORE: Maddocks takes new approach
McReight got close to the white line himself, resisted the urge to wrestle for an uncertain dot-down and shrewdly laid the ball back for another pick-and-drive.
No one was left one-out like Flook either. Teammates strapped themselves to low-driving ball-runners like turbo packs.
You couldn’t see O’Connor a moment after his try. He was buried under a mound of leaping, fist-pumping bodies and sweat-soaking maroon jerseys.
What did it all mean on the broader landscape?
“The biggest crowd in 10 years (at Suncorp Stadium), the biggest Australian derby crowd in nearly 20 years, 450,000-plus people watching the finish on Channel 9...that’s fantastic for rugby,” McReight said.
“Some of the guys were in the crowd for the 2011 Super Rugby final as kids and it pushed us to become professional rugby players.
“Hopefully, we’ve done that for a lot of our juniors, boys and girls. We just want to keep winning for Queensland."
The fun and laughter of Sunday’s post-game celebrations brought a tight team even closer.
The Reds have gulped what it feels like to be trophy-winners.
Any success over a Kiwi side will be hard won but there is now a fan base looking forward to those games with relish not trepidation.
