NSW Waratahs coach Dan McKellar said he was "shattered" after the Queensland Reds gained Super Rugby revenge with a 26-17 win at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium on Saturday night.
The Waratahs beat the Reds 36-12 in Sydney in round one but Les Kiss was able to roll out a much stronger line-up for the rematch.
Backrowers Harry Wilson and Jamie Adamson exchanged early first-half tries but the game then turned into a grind.
Watch the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season with every match streaming live and on demand
It was 7-7 at half-time and that scoreline held until reserve Waratahs hooker Ioane Moananu put the visitors in front in the 58th minute.
That ignited a thrilling finish as fatigue set in and the backs started to find open space.
Reds No.10 Carter Gordon scored two late tries to turn the game in Queensland's favour, a week after he scored the match-winner against the ACT Brumbies.
Gordon displayed a sharp turn of pace, and so did teammate Filipo Daugunu who scythed through the Waratahs to put Isaac Henry away under the posts.
NSW kept throwing punches, however, and Max Jorgensen conjured a try out of nothing for Harry Potter.
The impressive Triston Reilly then went within a whisker of scoring another in the corner but the TMO rightly disallowed the try.
The Reds have now won 10 of 13 games against the Waratahs since 2020.
"Shattered. Really disappointed," McKellar told Stan Sport.
The Reds improve to fourth on the ladder with a 3-1 record although the Blues are favoured to leapfrog them when they play Moana Pasifika on Sunday.
"We knew they would come here with a plan to really try and stifle us," Kiss said.
"I was impressed by their ball control. It ended up 190 tackles to us, and they had to make 90 something. So that's a big load for us, but what's impressive to me, for our boys, we stayed in the hunt.
"Three or four turnover moments, we were alive, came alive, and we caught them napping. Does it say anything about fitness?
"I'm not sure, but we were alive and we were ready to attack the game. We certainly want to make sure that we stay alive in those moments. We don't necessarily practise for it, but it's something that we allow to prevail in our training centre.
"I'd like a little bit more from our set piece... but if we're going to do it like that, I don't mind that. We kept our cool, we stayed in the fight.
"We knew they'd want to come here and bash us, so we said let's put it back on them and see what happens from there."
The Reds now have a tough trip to play the Drua in Fiji next Saturday.
The Waratahs are now sixth with a 2-2 record after winning their first two games.
NSW host the Blues next Saturday.
"Disappointing that we knew throughout the week the counterattack and the loose ball, they're really dangerous with," Waratahs halfback Jake Gordon said.
"And they proved that in the last 20 minutes there. Frustration is a word that you could probably say."
Earlier on Saturday, the Drua beat the ACT Brumbies 42-27 in Ba while the Crusaders toppled the Highlanders 29-18 in Christchurch.