Highlanders coach Aaron Mauger was happy with the result but underwhelmed by the performance.
His side are now two wins from two after a late Dillon Hunt try was enough to see off Brad Thorn's spirited young Reds side 36-31 in Dunedin on Friday, but afterwards Mauger bemoaned the Highlanders' passive defence and some missed opportunities.
"We could have been more clinical, definitely," Mauger said.
"Especially when we got down to their part of the field.
"We had a plan to move their big pack around and when we did it well it worked but when we were a little bit loose we didn't quite execute the opportunities that we created."
Nowhere was that more evident than in the 49th minute, when the Highlanders missed a gilt-edged chance to break the Reds' resistance when leading 29-17.
With an overlap created on the left the otherwise excellent Shannon Frizell tossed a tough pass to Tei Walden, who knocked it forward and was smashed in a heavy tackle for his troubles.
The Reds hacked the ball downfield, got numbers to the breakdown and eventually set up an 80-metre counterattack try to Wallabies lock Izack Rodda.
It was the classic 14-point try.
"I think we had to win it three times," Mauger said.
"I was really proud of our guys to show the composure towards the end and get the points we needed to get ahead, but the disappointing thing is that we put ourselves in that position when we didn't really need to be in that position."
The lineout was also costly. Three times in the first half Liam Coltman failed to hit his jumpers and twice the Reds scored from the turnover ball.
But Mauger wasn't about to throw the hooker under the bus afterwards, pointing to "a bit of detail to iron out" after a 100 per cent lineout return in week one.
The defence was probably of greater concern, as Reds backs Jordan Petaia, Sefa Naivalu and Chris Feauai-Sautia showed they could cause teams some real problems this year with their power and pace.
"I thought we were a but passive on defence tonight and thought we got caught on our heels a lot," Mauger said.
"When we defend well we're a team that are on our toes and get off the line and make some good shots and we probably didn't see that enough tonight."
Nonetheless there still positives for the Highlanders.
The Highlanders' All Blacks quartet of Aaron Smith, Ben Smith, Waisake Naholo and Frizell showed their class, while young No 10 Josh Ioane again displayed his strong distribution skills off both hands and excellent goalkicking.
The Otago playmaker has landed 10 of his 11 kicks in Super Rugby this year.
Thorn cut a dejected figure afterwards, unable to disguise his disappointment that his side hadn't been ruthless enough to to "put the foot on the throat" despite taking a lead into the final 10 minutes.
He also fired a shot at referees over the officiating of the powerful Reds scrum.
"I was a little bit disappointed when I saw the first scrum, only our scrum was getting talked to by the ref," Thorn said.
"We've been a dominant scrum. I remember at the Crusaders [last year] the ref was mainly interested in us and it was frustrating and it was frustrating again today.
"I don't mind the refs critiquing stuff but you want that for both sides."