A changing of the guard or just a ding-dong battle between what are clearly Australia's top two Super Rugby teams?
Probably the latter but there's no doubt Queensland's rugby resurrection is the real deal after Saturday night's thrilling 40-38 comeback win over the Brumbies, gaining revenge for last year's grand final defeat.
Brad Thorn's Reds took advantage of an undermanned Brumbies scrum to bully their way to victory but there were smarts too – from James O'Connor's cool leadership and Hunter Paisami's educated left boot to set up Jordan Petaia's match-winning try.
Thorn's tough love and investment in youth is finally paying off but former Wallabies coach Michael Cheika also paid tribute to the wider Reds organisation in making the jigsaw pieces fit.
"If we look at list management, they've just calmly built up their roster so they've got depth all over the park," Cheika said on Stan Sport.
"The number of guys they've had interchanging in the front row in the last few years, all of good quality. They've got Seru Eru who's come into the team, Lukhan Salakaia-Loto – they've lost (Izack) Rodda and (Harry) Hockings, big second rowers…
"Back-row stocks aplenty so they've managed their list very well and they're able to deal with the adversity of losing players and remain consistent.
"They're not always going to be braining it, winning every game by 10 or 20, but they'll always be consistently there."
And the scary thing for their Australian rivals?
There's still plenty of room for growth on this upward trajectory.
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Cheika had a close involvement with Thorn as Australia's former coaching supremo and praised his ability for being able to stick to his guiding principles while also allowing a degree of flexibility.
"I think he's always known how to prepare teams because he's felt it himself as a player," Cheika said.
"What he's becoming much better at is all of this stuff (media). How to communicate, how to talk because believe it or not, when coaches are talking at pressers or post-match, they're usually talking to their players first.
"They love the fans, yes, maybe not that keen on the media types, as a coach, but they've got a chance to make a message and they can send that message out to their players. He's become better and better at articulating what he really believes.
"I think he's got a really good future ahead of him."
As does Suliasi Vunivalu, Queensland's star NRL recruit who scored a try in his first Super Rugby start.
Before the match Morgan Turinui wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that the former Storm flyer had the ingredients to become one of the great code-hoppers.
And while there were some glaring errors in Canberra, the potential is obvious and tantalising outside Wallabies trio O'Connor, Paisami and Petaia.
"This is going to sound a bit silly but the more mistakes he makes, the better," Cheika said.
"Because that's how you learn and his teammates will cover for him, that's part of the game. He's not scared to get in there and get involved and there's probably no better coach to bring him through than coach Thorn.
"He's done it himself, been on both sides of the goal-line, as far as league and union are concerned, he's swapped between both. He'll have the skills to give him the little bits he needs to improve. Six, seven, eight games of Super Rugby and then some games against the Kiwis across the Tasman, and he'll be flying."
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