Queensland Reds coach Nick Stiles has demanded improvement from his misfiring side, saying he's not interested in racking up admirable Super Rugby defeats.
Stiles admitted the Reds of the last two seasons would have been obliterated by the Hurricanes on Saturday night.
This year's model doggedly hung in but, in the end, still ended up on the wrong side of a 34-15 result at Suncorp Stadium against the reigning champions.
"Last year we probably lose by 70 points, I reckon easily," Stiles said.
"But I want to be really clear - I'm not into courageous losses.
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"The team we're trying to build here and the culture we're building is definitely not happy with a courageous loss.
"We're here to win football games."
It was the fifth consecutive defeat for the Reds and the third loss by an Australian side to New Zealand opposition this weekend.
But there was still a lot to like about Queensland and their cavalier attacking play, which produced two scintillating tries in the first half - both orchestrated by Scott Higginbotham offloads.
"I thought we finally started to stick to our structures of how we wanted to play football and we started to build some continuity," Stiles said.
Stand-in skipper Stephen Moore hailed former Wallaby teammate Higginbotham's impact on the game.
"When he carries the ball like that and gets the ball in his hands, he's skilful, he's fast," Moore said.
"It's really good to see him, he had a great game."
There were other individual highlights, with Stiles describing the match as a "line in the sand" for prop Taniela Tupou, who started at Super Rugby for the first time after the pre-match withdrawal of Markus Vanzati (calf) and finished as one of Queensland's better performers.
But Moore said there was no silver bullet for the Reds as they look forward to next week's clash with his old side, the Brumbies, in Canberra.
"I could sit here and say we can (turn it around) but we need to go out there and do it," he said.
"While we're in this period at the moment we need to keep working hard and front up Monday and go again.
"We've just got to dig in and find ways to get better."
