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Leader James Horwill is banking on the Reds grimly fighting to patch up their prestige on Saturday night or they risk flunking as Australia's worst Super Rugby side.
Missing the finals happens. To finish dead last in the five-horse race that is the Australian Conference would be pure embarrassment.
That's what is on the line at Suncorp Stadium when the Melbourne Rebels will be salivating at the prospect of skewering the wounded Reds for the first time.
The fledgling Melbourne club have upset the NSW Waratahs and ACT Brumbies and beaten the Western Force several times yet a 6-0 ledger of losses to the Reds galls them.
"The fact we play another Australian team makes it an easy game to get up for," Horwill said of the team's hunger to turn around five losses.
"There's extra meaning and all the boys know we are the only team in Australian that has never lost to them.
"Crunch time you say. I approach every game that way."
The 13th-placed Reds and Rebels both sit on a lowly 17 points but Scott Higginbotham's men from the south have a game in hand.
Reserve prop Jono Owen has signed a one-year deal with French club Grenoble for next season so the reshaping of the Reds has begun.
The Wallaby squad hopes of Jake Schatz, Anthony Faingaa, Mike Harris and Ben Tapuai have retreated with the Reds form dive and excellent showings by rival contenders.
They are still proud players who need to play to their full ability.
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Faingaa swinging into first receiver so Quade Cooper could operate wider with his pass in the slick JJ Taulagi try last weekend was a shrewd change-up that may be revisited on Saturday night.
Outside centre Tapuai was a totem pole at times in the shabby defence out wide against the Crusaders and must sharpen all those around him into a straight, advancing line.
Rebels coach Tony McGahan got one up on Reds counterpart Richard Graham, a former Easts premiership teammate, with a gritty 18-13 trial win.
Looking back, going to sleep on a 13-0 lead that night was the first sign of the dozy softness that has regularly killed the Reds this season.
Harassing physicality in the tackle, counter-rucking and the dogged defence that McGahan demands have become Rebels' staples.
"That trial win was a reminder we can win on the road and against good sides so we have revisited it," McGahan said.
"A lot of the Reds' first 40 minutes have been great this season so we are preparing to play them at their best, not worrying about whether they show up or not.
"At least three of the Reds will go down as among the greatest Reds players ever so we are still playing a very good side on paper."
The full-blooded Reds, not the water-down version, have to play like more than paper men.
McGahan saluted Higginbotham as a backrower of rare versatility which only rubbed in the fact he was a Reds game-breaker two years ago.
"Scott can do things others can't," McGahan said.
"We know the X-factor is there but to have 42 very solid involvements in the recent game against the Sharks shows the things he's doing at the breakdown, in attack and with his carries."
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