Davies, sidelined with a knee injury for much of the campaign, demonstrated raw pace to race in for three tries while Cooper's wizardry guided the Reds' cavalier attack in front of 44,940 fans.
"The excitement is there and it was certainly there this week but we are not going to go away from what has worked for us all year and we are going to control that emotion to build towards playing the final here next Saturday night," Reds skipper James Horwill said.
"We knew our conditioning was good for tonight's game and the week off probably proved beneficial and we just had to back our defence in the second half."
Queensland Rugby will hope nearly 8,000 more bodies get through the Brisbane turnstiles next week as the Reds look to host a capacity crowd for the Super Rugby final against either the Stormers or Crusaders.
But Queensland may be without the services of bustling number eight Radike Samo after the 2004 Super 12 champion was forced from the field with a head knock in the opening half.
Cooper showed no fear in attack and had clearly been given free rein by coach Ewen McKenzie to express himself, the Wallabies playmaker bamboozling the Blues' defence with nearly every touch.
After Davies gulped down an intercept to race away for the opening points, Cooper's individual brilliance set up Ben Tapuai for the Reds' second after a step, body shrug, skip and two dummies carved an opening for Cooper to find his inside centre.
Moments later, Cooper engineered an opening that led to a penalty goal and took Queensland to 15-0 after the fly half boldly ran the ball from inside his own 22m and sliced into the open field.
The Reds should have gone to the break with a clean sheet but complacency at the siren gifted Chris Lowrey an easy try as the lock burst through a gaping hole and scored underneath the posts.
That disappointment was quickly forgotten just eight minutes into the second half as Davies showed off his express pace to score from a set-piece, following a line-out, to exploit catch the Blues napping.
The pacey winger's treble was complete nine minutes later when he scored in the corner, again following some great lead-up work from Cooper who threatened the line and spread the ball to Davies via Anthony Faingaa.
Attack turned to defence for Queensland as the Blues threatened to pare back the deficit, but points were not to come for the Auckland franchise and it was left to Cooper to seal the deal with a drop goal five minutes from time.
Minutes earlier the Reds had squandered an opportunity to put the match to bed when Adam Wallace-Harrison spilled the ball over the line.
Auckland skipper Keven Mealamu conceded that the Reds were the better team.
"We built up some good pressure but let them off the hook with some little mistakes and against a quality side like the Reds in Brisbane it is going to work against you," he said.
"You have to take your hat off to the Reds, they played really well and they were the better side tonight.
"We threw everything we had at them and they came off better than us."
Reds: 30 (R Davies 3, B Tapuai tries; Q Cooper 2 conversions, penalty goal, drop goal)
Blues: 13 (C Lowrey try; L MacAlister 2 penalties, S Brett conversion)
- ABC/AFP
Tags: sport, rugby-union, super-14, australia, qld, brisbane-4000, new-zealand First posted July 2, 2011 21:24:00
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