In the end, it was just as well Super 14's battling entertainers Queensland didn't slip in the back door and cap their 2010 transformation with a semi-final berth.

The Reds, who razzle-dazzled to the end with a thrilling 38-36 win over the Highlanders at Suncorp Stadium, finished fifth but did so with a dozen players injured on the sidelines.

Had Ewen McKenzie's team - still kicking themselves after conceding big leads against NSW, the Sharks and Hurricanes - managed three more competition points they would be preparing for a first play-off campaign in nine years.

But at least they're not travelling to South Africa with a severely-depleted and inexperienced outfit to meet the defending champion Bulls who are at full strength.

Already with nine front-liners sidelined, the Reds lost rangy flanker Scott Higginbotham (ankle) and utility back Ben Lucas (knee) in the 11-try spectacle on Saturday night.

Captain courageous Will Genia finished the match but played the last hour on one leg after straining a knee ligament which would have also kept him out for a week or more.

"It might have been difficult to put a team together," McKenzie said on Sunday.

"We might have got 15 players but I don't know if we would have got a bench.

"I thought we covered (the injuries) pretty well last night when you consider the starting players on the sidelines."

Among them were James Horwill, Daniel Braid, Laurie Weeks, Saia and Anthony Faingaa, Ben Daley, Rob Simmons and Adam Byrnes.

Weeks was the only one in with a strong shot of returning next weekend.

It was only three years ago that the Bulls smashed a young, injury-ravaged Reds outfit 92-3 in the Republic.

Instead of facing the prospect of a semi-final touch-up, Queensland can look to 2011 with plenty of ambition.

But McKenzie underlined that continued improvement was crucial.

"You have to crawl before you can walk," he said.

"From the last three weeks ... we're not really geared up to make that final assault.

"But it's like climbing Mount Everest, you have to go up and down a few times.

"We've done a really good job getting a fair way up the mountain, but we've got a bit of work to do."

Quade Cooper ensured a 26,700-strong crowd got full value for their dollar on Saturday night by scoring one try, setting up four others and kicking an angled conversion for the win.

The audacity of the highly-skilled five-eighth was evident early when he threw an unnecessary back-handed cut-out pass for Peter Hynes to score for a 17-3 lead.

McKenzie, who is confident Cooper will re-sign in the coming weeks, insisted he would not shackle his young playmaker next year.

"What can you do? You have such an audacious talent and you can't sit in the coaches' box and say `don't do this and don't do that'," he said.

"You dont want to stifle his talent."

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