Magpies withstand Pride fightback

The Souths Logan Magpies edged past a competitive Northern Pride outfit at Davies Park; running out eventual 24-20 winners in their Round 19 match up.

The local Brisbane crowd was treated to some entertaining rugby league, as both sides exchanged attacking raids early in the match.

An error from Alex Bishop invited the Pride into good field position, and Cowboys centre Enari Tuala made the most of the opportunity, when he bumped past Guy Hamilton to run away and open the scoring for his side in the 14th minute.

It didn’t take long though for Magpies No.9 Manai Cherrington to have an impact on the game, when he sliced through some poor Pride defence in the 28th minute. Hamilton knocked over the extras to level the scores 6-6.

A late Biondi-Odo penalty goal gifted the Pride a narrow 8-6 lead heading into the sheds, setting up for an exciting second half contest.

The match maintained its end-to-end nature in the second stanza, with both sides creating plenty of opportunities only to be denied by some gutsy goal line defence. 

Despite young fullback Fanitesi Niu being put in the sin-bin in the 55th minute, the Magpies continued to hold strong in defence and instead turned defence into attack, when Luke Burton latched onto a Hamilton kick in the 60th minute to break the deadlock.

As the Pride forwards began to tire, Cherrington was quick to expose them through the middle and set up a try for his fullback Niu under the posts in the 67th minute.

The Magpies inflicted more pain on the Pride, when Matt Soper-Lawler managed to get a fingertip to a Hamilton grubber kick only minutes later, to extend their lead to 24-8.

The Pride were not going away however, when David Murphy was the beneficiary of a lovely Tom Hancock offload to reduce the deficit to 10 points with four minutes remaining.

After the game looked all but over, the Pride sent a scare through the Magpies camp when Javid Bowen broke through before linking up with Gideon Gela-Mosby who ran away to make it 24-20 in the final moments.

Despite the late fightback, the Magpies managed to hold on for a much-needed win to boost their slim finals chances in 2019.

With a week off before their next match, the Magpies will face the third- placed Wynnum Manly Seagulls at BMD Kougari Oval in Round 20.