THE Northern Pride remain upbeat ahead of their first finals series despite losing to Ipswich 30-20 in the last round of the Queensland Cup.

The Pride have lost their past three games and will start the finals on the road against Souths Logan, but coach Andrew Dunemann found positives out of their clash against the minor premiers on Saturday night.

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"(There were) a lot of positives to come out of the game but when we read the paper, we’re still going to be losing, so we can’t be happy with that," Dunemann said.

"I reckon we’ve come a long way from what we’ve been producing the last few weeks and that’s a really positive point to take out of it."

The Pride needed a win – and for Souths Logan to lose to Burleigh yesterday – to book a state league final at Barlow Park.

And while their loss means that will not happen, the Pride have still finished the regular season in third place, meaning they have a double chance in the finals.

"I thought we were by far the better team actually, we just had a 10-minute period there where it killed us," Dunemann said.

The Pride trailed 12-10 at halftime but had the momentum at the break after Greg Byrnes charged over for a try minutes before halftime to get the Pride back in the game.

The home side scored twice in the opening 10 minutes of the second half to take a 20-12 lead and seemed well in control of the match.

But things turned in the span of five minutes, Ipswich scoring three tries to regain the lead and cruel the Pride’s chances.

When Jets front-rower Aaron Sweeney virtually strolled through some "soft" goal-line defence to score in the 65th minute, it seemed the damage the Pride’s confidence as much as their lead.

They kicked out on the full from the restart, handing back possession that would lead to another try before a rare knock-on deep in defence from Chey Bird handed the Jets a scrum 10m out from which they scored.

"We need to get on top of that and hopefully we’ll do that during the week and we can go into this week full of confidence," Dunemann said of the short lapses that were spoiling the Pride’s best efforts.

"Especially against sides like them (you can’t afford lapses) because they’ve got so much speed.

"If you’re off for five or 10 minutes they make you pay because they’re a speedy side.

"I think the last three or four weeks, every time we’ve made a mistake, we’ve nearly compounded it by giving a penalty away as well."

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