Pride take lessons into Devils battle
LESSONS learnt in the Northern Pride’s only loss of the Intrust Super Cup season so far will give the Cairns club their best shot of upsetting league leaders Norths Devils.
The Pride fell 36-6 to heavyweights WynnumManly a fortnight ago in arguably the toughest night the club has endured so far this season.
Early injuries didn’t help the home side as a strong Seagulls outfit ground out the 30point win, but it was a game from which Pride coach Ty Williams and his staff had learned a lot about not only his side, but the competition as a whole.
“Across the board,” Williams said. “(From) coaching down to the player, understanding how the competition is this year.
“Wynnum are up front as well, they’re a big team; Norths are a very big team as well. I think that experience from two weeks ago hopefully we take something from it.
“We have to take the opportunities when we get them, and we did on the weekend, so I think we need to showcase that again moving forward.”
Based on their form in the opening four weeks of the 2021 season, it should not be a repeat of the Northern Pride nightmare the last time the Devils travelled to Cairns.
It was towards the end of the Pride’s horror 2019 campaign, and the Devils showed no mercy in the 62-14 shellacking at Barlow Park.
Brisbane centre Herbie Farnworth scored 32 points himself from four tries and nine goals, as a Devils outfit which featured current Broncos duo Ethan Bullemor and Jordan Riki alongside now Warriors duo Sean O’Sullivan and Jamayne TaunoaBrown ran roughshod.
The Pride of today are totally different to that night.
Centre Javid Bowen, winger Shawn Bowen and forward Terrence Casey-Douglas are the only members of that side who will line up against the Devils on Saturday night, as Williams plots a way to end the north Brisbane club’s undefeated start to the Intrust Super Cup season.
He has kept the same 17 as the side who earned a gutsy 30-26 win against Townsville last week, keeping faith with the same engine room which got on top of the Blackhawks to provide the Pride with an opportunity to win.
But Williams warned what players achieved in previous weeks meant nothing when they took the field in front of their home fans this Saturday, and called for his entire side to raise the bar against a Devils outfit which boasts the best attacking record in the Intrust Super Cup.
“On paper it looks good, but there’s a lot of areas we need to be better at,” he said.
“The boys understand that, and that’s the challenge for us moving forward. Don’t rely on what happened last week will be good.
“The same guys have been selected, but I need the playing group to keep pushing each other, and that’s how we’ll become better.
“We need to back it up with another good performance this week. I did put guys on notice after the Wynnum game, and said we need to be better than that, and the reaction out of it was really good.
“This week will be the same thing, we need to be even better.”