Some games you can’t accurately describe nor do justice to, as they seem to defy belief.
With 25 minutes to go the Ipswich Jets were down 40-12 and people naturally started to think ‘game over’.
Then 25 minutes later as the sun set over the North Ipswich Reserve, Wes Conlon lined up a conversion to win the Jets the game. The conversion was just wide and that left 10 seconds on the clock.
Suddenly a 40-all draw looked the most likely option, but Souths chanced their arm and went the short kick off hoping to have one last crack at the Jets.
At that time the worst sound in the world for the Jets is the referee’s whistle. Michael Gordon spotted a stray Jets hand on the ball and a penalty after the siren 38m out for Souths to have a shot and win the game.
Souths’ Jordan Rapana had kicked beautifully all day, converting five from five in the first half to get the Magpies off to their flying start. He calmly slotted it through to give Souths an incredible 42-40 win.
Souths had earlier got off to a great start, handing the slow and sluggish Jets a football lesson with some enterprising attack from the likes of Rapana, Rhys Jacks and Leon Panapa.
The Jets found themselves down 24-0 after 14 minutes. Ipswich had been guilty of lacking enthusiasm and not meeting the Magpies with aggressive line speed.
Trailing 30-6 at half-time, Ben and Shane Walker addressed both concerns and issued the ultimate challenge, ‘who is going to put their hand up, put their body on the line and get the Jets out of this’?
The question looked like going unanswered when the Magpies extended the lead when Archer scored after four minutes to get the Magpies out to 34-6.
A fired up Conlon got the ball rolling for the Jets by accelerating through a gap and throwing a huge left foot step out to score, tossing the ball away in jubilation to indicate to the Jets he certainly wasn’t ready to roll over.
The Jets, now down 34-12 with 32 minutes to go, could sense a small opening.
Souths Logan had other ideas and crossed again following a powerful surge from Panapa to extend their advantage to 40-12.
But Ipswich were still willing and started to attack the Magpies, with ball movement and inside runners looking for support.
Matty Parcell scored under the posts on the back of everything the Jets attack do well, soon followed by Carlin Anderson flying over in the left hand corner and the Jets were lining up on the tarmac to be part of a huge comeback.
In a remarkable turnaround, it was suddenly 40-30 with 11 minutes to go when the Jets lost Troy O’Sullivan to the sin bin for 10 minutes for a professional foul. Down to 12 men seem to free up more room for the Jets to attack the deficit and when Marty Kennedy scored his first Intrust Super Cup try on the right hand side pushing away defenders to bury the ball under a flock of Magpies, it was 40-36 with four minutes to go.
The crowd erupted when Anderson, playing just his 10th Intrust Super Cup game, scored his second try of the afternoon and his sixth for the year in the left hand corner to lock the game up and give the Jets a crack at what seemed impossible 25 minutes ago – a two point win.
It wasn’t to be though as Josh Hannay’s Magpies pulled the game out of the bag to maintain touch with the top five.