This may come as a shock to Queensland Reds supporters. Yes, you can go along to a Super 14 game and enjoy it so much that you want to go back again for some more fun.

The Reds ended their dismal run of results at Suncorp Stadium with a win against the Cheetahs on Saturday afternoon in front of a crowd that was listed as 12,500 even though, as a viewer on television, it looked to be much less than that.

It definitely would have been less had it not been the last game at home for one of the Reds’ favourites from the past decade, Ben Tune, whose intercept try was the undoubted highlight of Queensland’s second victory for the season.

Unfortunately, the onfield success against probably the worst South African side doesn’t hide this fact: the Reds’ move from Ballymore to be a full-time tenant of Suncorp Stadium has been a failure.

It will continue to be a huge financial drain on the Queensland Rugby Union until the Reds turn into a side that wins more often than it loses.

That, judged on the past two seasons and the speculation that some of the Reds’ best players will again be picked off by rival franchises for 2008, seems to be a long way down the track. What the Reds need is to somehow get out of their Suncorp Stadium contract, return to Ballymore and start again.

Get the fans back to the traditional home of rugby, sitting on the hill with a few beers and don’t try any not-so-clever marketing tactics like calling them the “Red Army”. Go back to basics, play on Sunday afternoons now and then, and let the crowd, and the players, build their passion for the sport in a more intimate setting than a 52,000-seat stadium.

The Reds’ hierarchy, and marketers, could do worse than follow what the Chiefs do in Waikato. Like Brisbane, the Chiefs’ base in Hamilton is not the biggest rugby market in the country. In fact, with a population around the 150,000 mark, Hamilton is significantly smaller than Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington, but what they have developed at the Chiefs is a following which not only turns up to watch the game in a stadium which can fit in 25,000, but has fun doing it.

Contrast that with the Reds crowd which, at times this season, has been as quiet as a funeral – even with the fake crowd noises, and those annoying QR train noises, being played over the P.A.

The Chiefs hand out more freebies in an afternoon than Sunshine Coast radio stations do in six months – footies are launched into all sections of the crowd after every try and there’s a Catch the Cheerleader competition where one lucky punter gets as many prizes as cheergirls he can tackle, without too much vigour, in a 60-second period.

The supporters turn up with cowbells, there’s a Kiddies Corner for the young fans and their parents, and there’s one crazy fan, known as “Possum”, who spends each game at the top of a cherrypicker, armed with a chainsaw which he lets rip at any appropriate opportunity.

After the match, win or lose, he throws out $100 worth of lollies, that he’s paid for himself, to the youngsters below. The match program is cheap, only $3, and you can get in the gate for $15. The only downside is that a beer is $5.30! I’d happily go back to Waikato Stadium tomorrow but not to see the Reds at Suncorp, even though they are only just over an hour away.

The happiest group of sportsmen on the Sunshine Coast today are the finishers in the Trans-Tasman yacht race. All but two of the 14 yachts which started in New Plymouth in New Zealand a fortnight ago had made it to Mooloolaba in time for yesterday’s prizegiving function at Kawana Waters Hotel – one finished not long ago.

Nimbus 11, the smallest yacht in the field, crossed the finish line off Mooloolaba at 9.22am yesterday. The 6.99m timber sloop, sailed by Aucklander Richard Raea, crossed the line in 11th – 13 days and 20 hours after leaving New Plymouth.

Well done to all of those who have made it here. I can only imagine what it’s like to be alone on a yacht for that long