PRIDE MAKES UNWANTED HISTORY
DESPITE a ninth straight defeat pushing the club into its worst losing streak in history, Northern Pride coach Ty Williams is feeling more heartened than disappointed.
Although it could be described as another patchy performance, a young and muchimproved Pride squad showed glimpses of their potential against the Queensland Cup’s surprise packets at Vico Oval on Saturday afternoon.
While Williams said the result of the game did not hinge on the one decision, he couldn’t help but wonder “what if” after a Connor Jones line break was held up late in the first half.
The play was brought back and the Pride penalised after referee Tim Rutherford felt centre Javid Bown interfered with a Tweed defender in the chase. At the time, the Pride were down 8-0.
“It was a massive call for us,” Williams said.
“Obviously, the referee saw something different, but I thought CJ was a chance of scoring there. We end up spinning around and they score on the back of it.
“So we go into the half at 12-0 down, but if it was 8-6 it might have been a bit of a different story.”
The most pleasing thing for the coach was that the “bad patches” were getting noticeably smaller, he said.
“Six or so weeks ago, we were poor in patches for about 20 minutes, whereas the last few weeks we’re starting to narrow that gap.
“On the weekend, I thought we were poor for about six or seven minutes, where (Tweed) got two tries and got the jump on us. It was very to-and-fro and I think that’s something we’ve been pretty poor at, but we stuck in there during them moments on the weekend.”
Williams said he was impressed with his side’s efforts overall.
“We went down in the first half, but the physicality was good,” he said.
“Our boys’ efforts for the whole game were outstanding. We probably left our run a little bit late but we spoke about it after the game in the sheds how in the last 25 minutes we started getting a bit of momentum and playing some football.
“Obviously, we talk about wins and losses, but we’re really starting to move in the right direction and the last 25 minutes probably typified where we’re going.”