Queensland captain Will Genia says the Reds’ gritty win over the Chiefs shows they have the “mongrel” attitude that is needed to be competitive in this year’s Super 14.

The Reds caused a major upset when they beat the previously undefeated Chiefs 23-18 in Hamilton last Friday night, the visitors having entered the clash severely weakened by injury and mindful of their four-season losing run against their opponents.

They also did not help their cause when they allowed the Chiefs to race to a 15-0 lead midway through the first half before launching a stoic comeback to claim their second win of the season that leaves them in seventh place on the ladder.

The Reds’ opening victory of the season was a 41-20 result in round two at home to the Crusaders, another opponent that was heavily favoured to account for the Brisbane-based franchise.

Genia, who was making just his second appearance as Reds captain, is impressed with how his side closed out the match against the Chiefs after trailing 18-13 at half-time.

They kept the Chiefs scoreless in the second term while posting 10 points of their own and Genia feels this shows the Reds have the ruthlessness and self belief to match any team in the competition at the death.

“We’ve never won those tight contests and to come back from behind and show a lot of character as we did, it was definitely a great win,” he said.

“It sets us up really well for the season in terms of attitude and knowing what we can achieve.”

A trademark of the Reds’ campaigns in recent seasons has been their tendency to hold a lead until midway through or late in the second half, only to squander their advantage and suffer defeat.

This was again the plot line when they lost 30-28 to New South Wales at Lang Park in the first round of this season, having led by 10 points with as many minutes left in the contest.

Genia says he is hopeful the Reds have now cleared this mental hurdle, as illustrated by the triumph over the Chiefs.

“It has been a problem [closing out matches] to get to the 60, 70-minute mark and we tend to lose games, as we showed in the first week against the Waratahs,” he said.

“We kind of just spoke about wanting to play for 80 minutes and having that mongrel and attitude right the way through the game and that is something that we definitely showed on the weekend.”

Welcome headaches

The Reds’ growing injury list forced coach Ewen McKenzie to make three changes to his starting backline against the Chiefs with full-back Peter Hynes (dislocated finger), and wingers Digby Ioane (knee) and Rod Davies (fractured cheekbone) having all been ruled out.

Among the inclusions named was Wallabies tourist Luke Morahan at full-back and he made his presence felt with what proved to be the winning try in the second half.

Genia says Morahan’s performance and that of wingers Will Chambers and Brando Va’aulu gives the Reds the selection dilemmas they crave, considering Ioane is set to face the Western Force at Lang Park on Sunday and Hynes is a “50-50″ chance of playing.

“You can’t not pick someone like Peter Hynes and Digby as well, but it’s always good to have that selection headache,” he said.

The Force are 0-3 so far this season and their mammoth injury list has seen them already use around 30 players.

On paper they are seemingly the ideal opponent for the Reds to record back-to-back victories for the first time since 2006 but Genia has highlighted that his troops became distracted by that prospect after beating the Crusaders.

“The last time we said we wanted to win two in a row we lost,” he said.

“So, we’re just concentrating on putting in another good performance and backing that up with the win on the weekend.”