Super Rugby round 10
Reds slam 'boring, cynical' Brumbies
ESPN Staff
April 21, 2013
The Reds celebrate Rod Davies' try, Queensland Reds v Brumbies, Super Rugby, Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, April 20, 2013
The Reds celebrate Rod Davies' try, one of three they scored against the Brumbies © Getty Images
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Queensland Reds coach Ewen McKenzie and captain James Horwill have lashed the Brumbies as "cynical" and "boring" for their approach in the 19-19 top-of-the-table Super Rugby match at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.

But Brumbies coach Jake White hailed his side's defensive display to deny Queensland Reds time and time again while playing two 10-minute spells with one player in the sin-bin, saying "I'm proud by the fact that we kept them out".

"I don't know if we could get punished any more," White said. "I think they had about 20 penalties on our line. Ewen has obviously got a view, but they got a lot of penalties and had a full crack at our line."

McKenzie and Horwill lamented the fact the hosts had failed to land the killer punch despite scoring three tries to one, the skipper saying of the numerous pointblank-range penalties he declined that he "might look over them again and think otherwise but we had the upper hand and I wanted to keep the pressure on".

But they clearly believed the Brumbies got away with murder under referee Glen Jackson, who could easily have sent more than Christian Lealiifano and Scott Sio to the sin bin - particularly as the Brumbies infringing continually to slow wave after wave of Reds attacks in the second half.

"Frustrated, yeah," McKenzie said. "There were no surprises out there. They gave away 12 penalties in their defensive quarter, not counting the advantages on penalties ... repeated infringements. I was pleased we went out there to play. We could have got a couple more tries and we were unlucky on the Ben Daley [no] try where everyone knew it was a try but the TMO couldn't see it. We could have played their game too and turned it into a turgid affair with the fans walking out at half-time."

Horwill, too, was furious as he thought the Brumbies had overstepped the letter of the law. "There was just some cynical stuff," Horwill said. "That's the reality of it; we knew they would do that. They're good at slowing the ball down and we should have been better to execute when they were down to 14 men."

The Reds and the Brumbies could not be separated after a titanic battle (video available only in Australia)
© ESPN Australia / New Zealand

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