It wasn't pretty but Queensland Reds coach Nick Stiles says Friday night's scrappy win over the Sharks will get the ball rolling on their Super Rugby renaissance.
The new-look Reds clawed back after a disastrous start to beat the Sharks 28-26 in their rollercoaster season opener at Suncorp Stadium.
They did it despite some controversial refereeing decisions, two yellow cards to Kane Douglas and Karmichael Hunt for head-high contact and a litany of handling errors that threatened to ruin the much-hyped homecoming of Quade Cooper, Stephen Moore and Scott Higginbotham, as well as Wallaby great George Smith's first match for the franchise.
But for Stiles, in his first match at the helm of the Reds after a long apprenticeship as an assistant, it was just enough.
"I'll take that win any day," Stiles said.
"We didn't play as pretty a football as we wanted to, but we'll get more out of that tough win and the understanding and belief within the group that we can get better this week.
"You're not going to win the Super Rugby title in January but what we've done is win the first game - a game there's no way we would have won in the last few years."
It's a solid foundation but there is plenty of room for improvement for the Reds, who looked nervous early on as they tried perhaps too hard to make an impression in front of their home fans.
There were flashes of brilliance throughout, with Samu Kerevi continuing his stunning from of last season with a pair of tries - each coming just when Queensland needed them in a tense second half.
But Stiles admitted they were lucky to win in light of Cooper's wayward goalkicking, with the Wallaby landing only three from six attempts - in stark comparison to Pat Lambie, whose only miss was a 77th-minute penalty from a difficult angle that would have won it for the Sharks.
"The most important thing we did is win the game," captain James Slipper said.
"We can obviously work on the combinations through training.
"Now that we've played we can take the positives and negatives out of that and move onto the Western Force next week."
Sharks lock Etienne Oosthuizen, meanwhile, has been cited for his off-the-ball strike on Nick Frisby in the ninth minute, an incident the citing commissioner deemed had met the red card threshold.
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