{"id":303538,"date":"2023-06-03T08:23:36","date_gmt":"2023-06-03T08:23:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=303538"},"modified":"2023-06-03T08:58:38","modified_gmt":"2023-06-03T08:58:38","slug":"thorn-hurting-as-queensland-fluffs-finals-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=303538","title":{"rendered":"Thorn 'hurting' as Queensland fluffs finals lines"},"content":{"rendered":"

The \ufeffQueensland Reds will become Chiefs fans for a night after they fluffed their lines against a fired up Fijian Drua in Suva on Saturday.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 41-17 loss meant the Drua leapfrogged the Reds into seventh place and ensured they would play in the Super Rugby Pacific finals for the first time.<\/p>\n

The Reds sit in eighth but will be knocked out of the playoffs if the Western Force beat the Chiefs in Perth on Saturday night (kickoff 10pm AEST).<\/a><\/p>\n

Watch the 2023 Super Rugby Pacific season on the home of rugby, Stan Sport.<\/strong><\/em> All matches streaming ad free, live and on demand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"Selestino<\/p>\n

The Chiefs have top spot locked up heading into the quarter-finals and thus have named a severely understrength side.<\/p>\n

Chiefs coach Clayton McMillan has rested stars Damian McKenzie, Emoni Narawa, Brad Weber, Luke Jacobson, Sam Cane, Brodie Retallick and Samisoni Taukei'aho.<\/p>\n

If the Force win, Brad Thorn's tenure as Reds coach will be over.\ufeff<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Djokovic blasts 'disrespectful' Roland-Garros fans\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Aussie gun's amazing feat, champ's world record demolition\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Explosive Hawthorn twist 'cuts deep', says Lewis\ufeff<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportRugby\/status\/1664874764891230209?s=20<\/a><\/p>\n

"At the moment I'm hurting a bit and obviously we'll see what happens tomorrow, if we get that opportunity," Thorn told Greg Clark on Stan Sport's coverage.<\/p>\n

"And when I have a break at some stage I'll have a think about things and things that you've done.<\/p>\n

"But at the moment just hurting a bit and on the other side pleased for Fijian rugby."<\/p>\n

NEW PODCAST! Sean Maloney, Morgan Turinui and Stephen Hoiles unpack the drama of the Super Rugby Pacific finals race and some thrilling fixtures in the northern hemisphere<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

https:\/\/omny.fm\/shows\/between-two-posts-1\/finals-run-drama-aussie-try-of-the-year\/embed<\/a><\/p>\n

Backed by a raucous home crowd, the Drua broke out of a 17-17 stalemate at half-time to score three second-half tries while holding the Reds scoreless after the break.<\/p>\n

"Obviously it was a real tough second half," Reds captain Tate McDermott said.<\/p>\n

"I was proud of the effort in the first half, but we were nowhere where we needed to be in that second half.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportRugby\/status\/1664865390491729920?s=20<\/a><\/p>\n

"Awesome atmosphere. You're pretty lucky to have fans like you do over here and obviously cheered their team home and made them play pretty well."<\/p>\n

The match was the first between the Drua and Reds in Fiji, harking back to the days of the Super 6 tournament when Queensland state teams regularly played the Fiji national team.<\/p>\n

When the final whistle sounded, Drua fans shook the National Stadium as they danced to Tina Turner's Simply the Best<\/em>.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportRugby\/status\/1664856721792331777?s=20<\/a><\/p>\n

"You can see how happy we are now," Drua captain Meli Derenalagi said.<\/p>\n

"Hats off to the soldiers (players) behind me for doing their duty today.<\/p>\n

"First of all a big bula vaka levu (many thanks) to our fans who came out in numbers today, just to support their home team."<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/StanSportRugby\/status\/1664883269605773314?s=20<\/a><\/p>\n

There were no signs in an even first half that the Drua would so thoroughly dominate the second.<\/p>\n

They outplayed the Reds at set pieces and buckled the defence with constant, strong ball running so that the visitors couldn't easily escape their own half.<\/p>\n

The win was triumphantly sealed by a try to star backrower Joe Tamani, who dashed 50 metres to finish a breakout as the crowd roared its approval.<\/p>\n

The Drua scored the first try of the match after only four minutes when Selestino Ravataumada charged down a clearing kick by Reds fly-half James O'Connor and collected the bounce to score.<\/p>\n

The Reds responded immediately with a try to Ryan Smith but the Drua went ahead again with a try to Kelaveti Ravouvou.<\/p>\n

Fraser McReight scored for the Reds, who edged further ahead with an O'Connor penalty, but the Drua leveled the score at half-time with a try to Vilive Miramira.<\/p>\n

The second half belonged to the Drua, who added tries to Misake Doge and Tevita Ikanivere as the Reds lost discipline and McReight went to the sin bin.<\/p>\n

Tamani's try was a glorious finale.<\/p>\n

The Drua have pushed the Highlanders out of eighth place and now will play either the Chiefs or Crusaders in the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \ufeffQueensland Reds will become Chiefs fans for a night after they fluffed their lines against a fired up Fijian Drua in Suva on Saturday. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":303540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=303538"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303541,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303538\/revisions\/303541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/303540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=303538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=303538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=303538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}