No resting on laurels for Investec Super Rugby champs

With the Super Rugby crown in hand, record membership numbers for 2012, and vibrant rugby growth throughout the state, one could forgive the Reds for giving themselves a pat on the back for a job well done.

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But while the fairy-tale season is about to be firmly consigned to the record books with this year’s Super Rugby campaign less than a month away, the Reds are already looking at keys areas of improvement.

Talk of becoming a “dynasty” and winning multiple titles is coming frequently from Ballymore of late, especially with the appointment of coach Ewen McKenzie to the Reds until the end of 2014.

But the former Waratahs coach was more focused on last season’s heaviest defeat, where his old charges brought a huge amount of physicality and brutality to the tackle area en route to a thumping 30-6 win early in the season in Sydney.

That round two match was avenged somewhat with a 19-15 in the return match at Suncorp Stadium – a result than ended a seven-match sequence of wins for the New South Welshman.

The Reds will return to ANZ Stadium, the scene of their 24-point drubbing, in round one of the 2012 Super Rugby season, and McKenzie said to the Daily Telegraph the Queenslanders were wary of complacency.

"It's a big game, they always are," McKenzie said.

"It definitely has been spoken about. We didn't get it right, we were disappointed.

"We were embarrassing a bit down there. We won the next eight, so we got a lot out of the game. We just didn't go well in the game. We need to make sure we don't fall into that again."

McKenzie said ahead of the season opener, also celebrating 130 years of rivalry between NSW and Queensland clashes, that expectation on the Reds wasn’t concerning him, offering the typical coaching wisdom locals have come to expect when hearing the Super Rugby championship coach speak.

"Everyone worries about the expectation burden, I look at it as the experience we have gained. We are in a good space," McKenzie said.

"You just have to make sure you don't make assumptions. You have make sure you work as hard as you did the year before getting things right.

"You have to make sure you go back and keep turning stones over and leave nothing unattended.

"We have plenty of stuff, heaps of stuff, to work on. We did a big thorough review, there are plenty of things we can improve on. We are not the finished product at all.

"The good things is our guys are all young. They have won a title and they have the experience in the bank. They have just got to try and be better."