You’d forgive Tate McDermott for feeling like it’s a sense of Groundhog Day this week.
However, the Reds captain is confident it’ll be fourth time lucky as they prepare for Friday’s elimination game against the Crusaders in Christchurch.
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McDermott and the Reds have been knocked out in the quarter-finals in the past three years by New Zealand teams in New Zealand.
This includes a 37-15 defeat in Christchurch in 2022, with the Reds falling to the Chiefs in 2023 and 2024.
Since then, the Reds have secured vital wins along the way that have boosted McDermott’s confidence they can be the first Australian team to win a finals game in NZ.
They broke a 25-year drought in Christchurch last year with a 33-28 victory without McDermott, who was suspended for a high tackle.
The Crusaders enacted revenge earlier in the season but McDermott and the Reds rightly concede they were distracted as floods ravaged Queensland to start the year.
“Obviously a very tough place to come and get the result, but we can take a lot of confidence from doing it last year,” McDermott said.
“I know a year is a long time in Rugby and we've had a number of quarterfinals here in the last couple years ago, so we know what it's gonna be like.
“We know that the crowd and weather might not be on our side, you know, but it's a really exciting challenge for this group, particularly after the disappointment of last year's quarter-final.”
The Reds still feel the pain of last year’s quarter-final defeat, blown away by the Chiefs after the eventual runners-up scored five tries in the first 22 minutes.
It’s why defence remains at the forefront of their preparation, with the two teams remarkably conceding the same number of points (371) across their 14 regular-season games.
“We've had a couple of key moments probably go against us and that's been on our own doing,” McDermott said.
“We haven't iced those big moments we've been in the lead in a couple of quarterfinals and just taking our foot off a little bit and we can’t do that.
"You've obviously got to start fast and if you don't start fast, you've got to stay in the grind which we didn’t and found ourselves down four tries.
“It's all about momentum tomorrow night. We've got to make sure that first of all, we try and get that momentum, and you can do that through a number of ways, but then if we don't have the momentum, we use our defence to get the momentum back.”
