THE Northern Pride will push aside the disappointment of Saturday's Queensland Cup preliminary final loss to focus on next year's campaign.

The wounded Pride suffered a heartbreaking 16-12 golden point loss to Souths Logan in Brisbane on Saturday, finally cracking in the eighth minute of extra time.

View the season's highs and lows in our Northern Pride picture gallery.

"It’s hard to get beaten like that," a disappointed Pride coach Andrew Dunemann said yesterday after the side returned to Cairns.

"I’m more disappointed for (the players) than anyone else."

And while he praised the character of his players, Dunemann still felt the Pride had fallen a bit short by failing to make the grand final.

"I think that’s reasonable to say but at the same time, they couldn’t have played any harder," Dunemann said.

"People say congratulations but it’s a bit hard to take.

"It’s commiserations as well."

Again missing captain Chris Sheppard, who suffered a season-ending foot injury the last time the Pride played Souths Logan in the semi-finals a fortnight ago, and with several players on the long-term injury list, Northern limped into Saturday’s game and almost won themselves an unlikely grand final berth.

A Jackson Nicolau try a minute before fulltime tied the scores, with Chey Bird having a chance to seal the win with a sideline conversion attempt.

The miss sent the match into extra time and while the Pride had their chances, it was Souths Logan that scored first, Kyle Lodge diving over in the eighth extra minute to end Northern’s debut state league season.

While their sixth tackle options were better than in last week’s loss to Ipswich, the Pride still missed Chris Sheppard’s on-field direction and were always going to need a bit of luck to advance but didn’t get the bounce of the ball.

Bird was one of the team’s best on Saturday but probably one of the unluckiest too.

His opening conversion attempt, a chance from just inside the left touch line in the 30th minute, bounced off the crossbar and he was unlucky to be penalised while in possession deep in Souths Logan territory in the 70th minute for a play the ball infringement widely regarded as a "50-50 call".

"There was a lot that happened within the game that could have been different from the bounce of the ball to the coach’s decisions and the players’ decisions," Dunemann said.

"At the end of the day, we had the team out there to win it.

"You could go through the whole game from minute one to minute 89 and think of things that could have been done differently or luck that might have been different but we lost and we need to learn from that."

That planning has already started, although Dunemann was taking time out yesterday to celebrate the season with his players.

"There’s a lot of things we’ve done right this year but there’s also a lot of things we can improve on."

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