Northern Pride can boast that they’ve beaten every rival club in the Intrust Super Cup in 2014 after scoring a 30-6 win against Ipswich at Barlow Park on Saturday night.
In their last regular season home game, the minor premiers were made to work hard for their win over the Jets, who were trying to back up a 24-18 win against the Pride in round eight.
After being held to 6-all at half time, the Pride came out a different side in the second stanza, posting four further tries, including four-pointers to Cowboys duo Hezron Murgha and Javid Bowen, in a dominant display to run out comfortable winners.
Coach Jason Demetriou handed half an hour of game time to young North Queensland forward Patrick Kaufusi, who acquitted himself well in his ISC debut.
“I was really pleased with him,” Demetriou told the Cairns Post.
“He probably struggled a little bit to start with but once he got into the swing of the game, came up with some really strong carries in the second half that got us on the front foot and led to points.”
It was the Pride’s 20th win in 23 games this year and they will try to make it 21 against Burleigh Bears on Sunday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the Mackay Cutters farewelled their home crowd with a 40-20 win against the CQ Capras with Cowboys centre Curtis Rona grabbing a double.
The Capras were well in touch at half time, trailing 12-10, and they briefly hit the lead with a try to Mitch Zornig.
However four tries in 15 minutes ensured Mackay would win for the 11th time this year and remain in seventh place on the ladder, six points adrift of the finals positions.
"I was really happy with the second half in particular, I think we made it hard on ourselves in the first half," Cutters coach Kim Williams said.
"We've been playing some good footy. It's pretty exciting for the future at this club.”
NORTHERN PRIDE 30 (Hezron Murgha, Jason Roos, Blake Leary, Davin Crampton, Javid Bowen tries; Shaun Nona 5 goals) def IPSWICH JETS 6 (Nemani Valekapa try; Wes Conlon goal) at Barlow Park.
MACKAY CUTTERS 40 (Curtis Rona 2, Justin Tavae 2, Zac Santo, John Asiata, Chris Gesch tries; Liam Taylor 6 goals) def CQ CAPRAS 20 (Rhys Williams, Guy Williams, Andrew Dale, Mitch Zornig tries; Hughie Stanley, Reece Baker goals) at Stadium Mackay.
