Norths completed another successful Country Week visit today with new fans and a stronger grip on a top-two position in the Hostplus Cup.
The 32-18 win over Mackay Cutters in Bowen yesterday was the feature of a three-day visit by the Devils to north Queensland.
The Devils held their Belong program in schools in Bowen and Collinsville, speaking with 230 students about health and wellbeing.
They attended the booming Bowen Seagulls juniors matches yesterday morning and welcomed many of the young players into their change rooms to celebrate after dismantling the Cutters.
The win improved the Devils to a 12-4 win-loss record, two points behind competition leaders Northern Pride and four points clear of third place. There are four games remaining until the finals.
But the match wasn’t without challenges for the Devils as Mackay took advantage of errors to surge to an 18-4 lead after 20 minutes.
The Cutters scored two tries before playing the ball in the Devils’ 20-metre zone. With six North Queensland Cowboys players on deck, the 10th-placed Cutters presented a formidable challenge for Norths.
But the Devils began a recovery that would deliver 28 unanswered points and the best attacking record in the competition.
It began with Jordan Lipp swooping on George Fai’s spin and offload close to the line followed by captain Kierran Moseley’s dummy-half pass to Sam Elliott for a try.
That made the halftime score 18-16 in favour of the Cutters but the Devils were never headed after Jack Ahearn scored his first try of the season in the 47th minute, finishing the best attacking move of the match.
The Devils’ 55-metre try started with Ahearn’s pass for Oryn Keeley, who offloaded to a flying Tesi Niu. The Dolphins’ NRL centre then hit Ahearn with a perfect pass for a runaway try.
The individual moment of the match came in the 54th minute when Devils five-eighth Julian Christian noticed the Cutters were defending in the frontline and launched a chip kick 35 metres out that bounced for his try in the corner. Andre Niko converted from the sideline.
Christian handled in the Devils’ final try in the 60th minute when he stepped off his left foot for a short-side movement that went to Jeremiah Simbiken and premiership centre Jacob Gagan, returning from a calf injury, for a try.
The Devils were again well served by their middle forwards, including starting props Tuki Simpkins and Cooper Jenkins and lock Mason Teague.
“Country Week is always a trip we look forward to and we’ve really enjoyed being in Bowen,” Devils coach Dave Elliott said.
“We encourage our players to really mix in with the local community and to meet people and understand more about footy in their town.
“With all that goes on, we don’t want to lose our focus on our game and we were good enough to overcome a slow start.
“Mackay is always a tough team to beat and they really got a jump on us before we turned it around.
“We know we can still be a lot better. We certainly have room for improvement and we have four games left in the regular season to keep getting better.”
Manase Kaho opened the scoring for the Devils yesterday with a try from a scrum in the third minute. That moved him into joint first place with Lipp as the competition’s leading tryscorer only for Lipp to regain the lead later in the half.
Declan Haydon played his second match for the Devils off a bench that included Campbell Duffy, Fai and Elliott.
NORTHS DEVILS 32 (Manase Kaho, Jordan Lipp, Sam Elliott, Jack Ahearn, Julian Christian, Jacob Gagan tries, Andre Niko 4 goals) bt MACKAY CUTTERS 18 (Josh Smith, Hiale Roycroft, Brent Anderson tries, Bayley Gill 3 goals) at Denison Park, Bowen.
