THEY have been drained of 1000 caps of Super rugby experience in two seasons and failed to lure potential figurehead David Pocock, but Queensland have full confidence an "exciting" youth culture will restore them to a position of power.
The battling Reds finished the 2008 Super 14 in 12th place - the fourth straight year in the bottom three - with just three wins and a draw, and lost eight of their most experienced players.
The Queensland Rugby Union last week confirmed wing-fullback Clinton Schifcofske, prop Rodney Blake, lock Ed O'Donoghue and centre Chris Siale would not be at Ballymore next season.
The quartet join departing Wallabies Chris Latham (Worcester), Sam Cordingley (Grenoble), Stephen Moore (Brumbies) and David Croft (retired).
Between them the eight players have 349 caps of experience, but when you add the number of others who have left since the 2006 season - after the Western Force had already raided their stocks - the number grows to 1000.
Each loss has been a jolt to the Reds but nothing has been more of a hammer blow than confirmation yesterday that star-in-the-making Pocock will remain with the Western Force for two more years.
Queensland threw their biggest sell in the direction of the articulate, polite forward, who would have immediately been groomed as a future leader and club figurehead.
But Pocock, 20, opted to stay in Perth under the coaching of former All Blacks mentor John Mitchell.
As important as it was for Mitchell and the Force, Pocock's decision is much worse for the young Reds, who have plenty of enthusiastic tryers but lack threads of real class.
The recruitment-retention report could get even worse with senior men John Roe (76 Super games), Morgan Turinui (71) and Van Humphries (45) all weighing up their futures. If the trio farewell the Reds, coach Phil Mooney's likely starting side for next season would have an average age of 21 and with an average 22 games experience.
Form winger Peter Hynes, at 26 and with 52 caps, would be the team's veteran.
This compares to an average of 58 Super caps, which the strongest team of 15 players who have left in the past two years would have boasted.
But the Reds, regarded as a provincial powerhouse in the 1990s, are still talking up the potential for a major turnaround after a six-year spiral.
"Our take on it is experience is one thing but performance is the ultimate," QRU high-performance manager Ben Whitaker said.
"Experience and performance gives you absolute quality, like Latho [Latham]. But I don't think we have the opportunity this year to pick up a lot of experience.
"We've concentrated on selecting and promoting performers and a good example there is [Wallabies halfback contender] Ben Lucas, who was our No.3 halfback at the start of the year.
"We have built on young guys. They are performing and are bringing huge enthusiasm to play for Queensland and that's encouraging."
While the results didn't come this year, the Reds' play improved markedly, prompting Croft to confidently predict a title in three years.
The injury-affected Reds did lose their last four matches of the season, but their ability to push top two teams NSW and the Crusaders, and tough Kiwi sides the Blues and Chiefs, suggested a major improvement was around the corner.
Skipper James Horwill, Berrick Barnes, Quade Cooper, Lucas, Digby Ioane and Leroy Houston showed the most encouraging signs and are all potential Wallabies stars aged under 22.
Whitaker said there was a sense of togetherness and a growing culture at the Reds that will not only trigger success but attract and develop other talented youngsters.
"We're very confident that's how it will work out," he said.
"We use the word exciting and then you have to live up to that excitement tag.
"We don't use potential, it's more than potential."
The biggest problem the Reds face is replacing Croft at openside flanker.
With Pocock, Whitaker and Mooney - the sixth coach in nine seasons - believed they had their man. Now they're forced to start over, yet again.
