Ipswich Jets v Northern Pride
North Ipswich Reserve on Saturday, April 2 – 5pm
Ipswich Jets
1. Carlin Anderson 2. Marmin Barba3. Rory Humphreys 4. Nemani Valekapa 5. Richard Pandia 6. Haydan Lipp 7. Dane Phillips (c) 8. Joshua Seage 9. Landon Hayes 10. Nathaniel Neale 11. Samuel Martin 12. David Fa’alogo 13. Fakahoko Teutau 14. Sebastian Pandia 15. Jesse Roberts 16. Billy McConnachie 17. Michael Purcell
Coach: Ben Walker and Shane Walker
Northern Pride
1. Linc Port 2. Khan Ahwang 3. Javid Bowen 4. Justin Castellaro 5. Shaun Hudson 6. Jared Allen 7. Brayden Torpy 8. David Murphy 9. Ryan Ghietti (c) 10. Patrick Kaufusi 12. Jack Svendsen 11. Vaipuna Tia-Kilifi 13. Ben Spina 14. Denzel King 15. Tom Hancock 16. Sheldon Powe-Hobbs 17. Colin Wilkie 18. Luke George
Coach: Joe O’Callaghan
Last time they played:
IPSWICH JETS 54 (Carlin Anderson 2, Matt Parcell 2, Marmin Barba, Josh Cleeland, Dane Phillips, Keiron Lander, Billy McConnachie tries; Carlin Anderson 9 goals) def NORTHERN PRIDE 26 (Brett Anderson 3, Javid Bowen, Ben Spina tries; Justin Castellaro 3 goals) at North Ipswich Reserve.
Head to Head: Pride 10 Ipswich 8 Drawn 1.
ROUND 5 2016:
The Jets and Pride have played some epic battles in their short history; The Jets beat the Pride 34-16 in the finals in 2008, in 2011 the Pride knocked the Jets out of the finals by winning 30-6 and in 2010 the Ipswich Jets completed one of its greatest ever comebacks- down 16-0 at half time the Ipswich Jets came back to win 22-16.
Round 8 2014 produced another grand chapter of comebacks whenthe Ipswich Jets found themselves down 18-0 after 30 minutes. Wes Conlon, Brendan Marshall and Marmin Barba set about righting the wrongs of the first half and saw the Jets home 24-18 in another stunning Jets’ comeback.
The Jets knocked the Pride out last year racking up 50 and who can forget Carl Webb smashing through the whole Jets’ team to score. Something is always happening when these two meet.
The Pride is coming off the bye so will be nice and rested up while the Jets travelled to Davies Park to take on Souths and came away with a 28-20 win and the Jets’ 200th win in the Intrust Super Cup.
The Pride are currently on a win and a draw while the Jets are on two wins. The Pride have scored 16 tries and had 14 against them while the Jets have scored 19 and had 16 against them.
Pride
Pride fullback Linc Port is backing up his great season from 2015; last season Port was great for the Pride at fullback Port scored 24 tries from 24 games including four against the Capras; three in the first half. He was also the Pride’s leading point scorer with 118 (24 tries 11 goals).
Port’s efforts saw him beat Tom Humble’s Pride record of 20 tries in a season. His fourth try equalled the efforts of his captain Brett Anderson and Tom Humble for Pride’s most tries in a game.
Port’s last game against Norths saw him contribute 18 runs and 130 metres for the Pride. Port can be dangerous getting into dummy half and taking pressure off his forwards. He made four scoots out of dummy half against the Devils. Port loves to dummy and the Jets will be on alert to not fall for anything.
Ben Spina at lock has also been very effective for the Pride, Spina made 170 meters in his last game, from 14 hit ups. He had three tackle breaks and 24 tackles with zero misses for the lock.
Patrick Kafusi is also the gainer of valuable metres for the Pride against Norths he gained his side 141 metres from 12 hit ups with two tackle breaks. Kafusi also has a dangerous off-load in him if the Jets don’t wrap up the ball.
The player that won’t be any stranger to Jets will be Khan Awang having played at the Jets for a number of years. The Pride use Ahwang’s huge bomb, coming infield on the last to hoist up a kick that would hit a plane.
The Pride are a side in a transitional phase; last year saw the retirement of five Intrust Super Cup champions for the Pride; Semi Tadulala, Sam Obst, Brett Anderson, Jason Roos and the non-playing Alex Starmer.. A combined 537 games for the Pride and Roos and Starmer still there from 2008 when the Pride started. That’s the core of their team and a whole lot of experience. This makes the Pride a bit of an unknown quantity at the moment.
The Pride have a new rule no win no going out after the game; it will be up to the Jets to make sure the Pride not only don’t record their first win at the Reserve but also don’t get to have a beer on Saturday night.
Jets
Carlin Anderson and Billy McConnachie will both play their 50th game for the Jets; 49 Intrust Super Cup games each and 50 games for Jets with the State Championship game v Newcastle.
Billy McConnachie has played 49 games and scored 10 tries while Carlin Anderson has 33 tries and 98 goals for 328 points.
Against Souths Carlin went past Chris Lawler on 327 points to 328 points and be sixth on the Jets all time points scoring list.
Marmin Barba’s three tries took him to 58 tries for the Jets and past Luke Walker and the 4th most tries now for the Jets.
Barba also scored his 340th point which takes him past Brendon Marshall and the 4th most points for the Jets.
Against Souths the Jets offloading was back; The Jets made 7 line breaks to 4 and 16 offloads to 6 which kept the Magpies defence working hard.
The two forwards that impressed me were Sam Martin and Josh Seage. They both do so much work that will go unnoticed. Martin did all his normal defence and hit ups but also threw a beautiful pass to an unmarked Barba to score in the corner. The pass would only have been significate if you know that the Jets and Martin practise being able to pass flat, hard accurate passes, under fatigue at speed- being a forward is no excuse not to be able to throw a pass like a back. Seage fields a kick, dummies, sums up the situation, and accelerates away from the defence draws and passes to an unmarked player inside with a flat pass- none of that happens by accident.
Nemani Valekapa again topped the metres against Souths with 161 which gives the centre 781 metres from four games this season. Nemani also had 7 tackle breaks against Souths and 21 for the season. He leads both categories for the Jets this season.
Hayden Lipp kicked very well against the Magpies with 3 kicks to space from his 7. This will be important again against the big Pride forwards that won’t like being turned around.