Myles roadblock to Blackhawks revival
TOWNSVILLE Blackhawks second rower Blake Leary is expecting nothing less than a no- holds barred shootout with old Sea Eagles teammate Nate Myles in Sunday’s Queensland Cup elimination final.
Leary and Myles will clash against each other for the first time since parting ways with Manly last year, Leary opting to refresh his career at the Blackhawks and Myles shifting to the Melbourne Storm, which has a feeder club arrangement with the Easts Tigers.
The Tigers and Blackhawks meet in Sunday’s door- die final at Langlands Park, the winner taking another step towards this month’s grand final.
For the first time in club history the Blackhawks will enter finals as rank outsiders, with betting agency UBET placing the Blackhawks at $ 31 to win the premiership, compared with favourites Redcliffe at $ 2.75.
But Leary is not paying attention to outside pressures, especially not after winning the Q Cup’s second rower of the year award.
Leary and Blackhawks teammate Jonathan Reuben ( best winger) were the club’s individual award winners at Wednesday night’s awards gala in Brisbane, which also saw Reuben crowned the Q Cup’s leading tryscorer despite missing a number of games through injury.
Leary is rapt with the honour and counts it as another bow to his string, but what he really wants is a second Q Cup premiership after winning the 2014 silverware at the Northern Pride.
To get there the Blackhawks have to go through the in- form Tigers, and for Leary that means taking on Myles in what is sure to be a rugged middle battle.
“I’m looking forward to playing my old mate. He’ll be into me,” Leary said.
“I’m sure there’ll be a bit of verbal stuff, but I wouldn’t expect anything different.
“He’s going to be doing the best for his side and I’ll be doing the best for mine. We’ll be mates before and after, but we have jobs to do.”
Myles is part of arguably the Q Cup’s most talentladen side, which includes Storm- contracted halfback Brodie Croft and five- eighth Billy Walters, the son of Queensland State of Origin coach Kevin Walters.
Former Blackhawks winger Conor Carey is also with the Tigers now, along with former Cowboys under- 20s forward Jack Svendsen.
They thumped 2016 premiers Burleigh 32- 12 last week and before that pummelled fifth- placed Souths Logan 46- 10.
“We know that they have plenty of talent and how well they have been playing late- ly,” Leary said. “It’s adding a bit more fuel to the fire and there’s been a fair bit of talk down south about how well the Tigers have been doing.
“Townsville hasn’t been looked on as underdogs before.
“They’ve definitely taken that picture for us.
“I think it’s good. We have a point to prove after last weekend because it was embarrassing for us as a club and it was a TV game.”
Leary said he still backed his side to go all the way despite its struggle with consistency, which took a sharp downturn with last weekend’s final round 42- 16 loss to Sunshine Coast.
“It’s so hard to tell, but when we click into gear we’re very hard to stop,” he said.