THE Pride's failure to show its A game against the Sunshine Coast is to blame for the club's hoodoo against the Queensland Cup premiers, captain Chris Sheppard says. 

The Pride lost 16-6 to the Sea Eagles in their Queensland Cup opener at Barlow Park on Saturday night, its fourth successive defeat since the Coast’s reintroduction to the state league last season.

Pictures: Northern Pride 2010

The Eagles boast a strong line-up thanks to their links with NRL club Manly, but Sheppard said the losses were more to do with the Pride’s inaction than the Coast’s domination.

"We haven’t played well against them any time we’ve played them to be honest," Sheppard said.

"I think we've let ourselves down.

"I don’t know if it’s a match-up thing or a mental thing.

"But once we have a few more combinations and a bit more time together, we look forward to playing them again."

The Pride paid the price for a poor start on Saturday, an error from the kick-off consigning them to a mountain of defensive work in the opening stages and several minutes without an offensive set.

The Eagles scored twice in the opening eight minutes after building enormous pressure with consecutive sets to race to a 10-0 lead.

"We didn’t get the football for nine minutes," Pride coach David Maiden said.

"They got on a roll and were very hard to stop.

"Our boys have done everything right this week. They trained well, they warmed up well and when you haven’t got the football it’s just very taxing, I suppose.

"It was a disappointing start but once we settled down, I thought we defended very well."

Once the Pride controlled the ball and showed better discipline – to counter a 5-0 penalty count against it in the opening 20 minutes – the team was able to exert its own pressure on the Eagles.

When Sheppard came up with a 40-20 in the 28th minute, the Pride scored in the following set through centre Mark Dalle Cort, who crossed out wide.

Ryan Stig’s conversion put the Pride back in the game at 10-6 but another Pride error allowed the Coast to take a 16-6 lead to halftime.

Neither teams scored in a sodden second half, the torrential rain making handling difficult and the Pride showing a lack of patience with the chances it did create.

Maiden was not disappointed with his players’ defensive efforts.

"Our attack needs work, our attack needs some cohesion but defensively I thought we went pretty well," Maiden said.

Sheppard said another loss to the Eagles stung but set up the next chapter in what was becoming a great rivalry.

"We’ve got a group there that absolutely hates losing," he said. "We’ve got to look forward, go on to next week and try to get a win there."

Share this article