Round 21 Saturday wrap: Pride maintain top of ladder honours

Northern Pride have continued their dominant form - and their position at the top of the ladder - with a win over Sunshine Coast Falcons in Cairns. 

The sides went into the clash with Pride at the top and Falcons third, and it was the Falcons who came out firing in the first half to go into half-time up.

But it was all Pride in the second half.

Pride coach Eric Smith said he was "really pleased with the result". 

"The game was everything we expected... we played a team coming third who is in good form," Smith said.

"We're getting close to the finals and both teams are wanting to sharpen everything up, ready, before we get into the do or die part of the season. Two really good teams, going at it. In that first 40 minutes, I thought even though we were behind at half-time, I thought we'd defended pretty well. One try and they had one intercept where they went the length of the field. But because we had a lot of errors in the first half, I thought the amount of defence we had to do against a team as good as the Falcons, I thought our defence held up really nicely.

"Another thing, just from that second half where we were able to get our fair share of the ball and we were just a bit more direct and powerful, we were able to get down to the right end of the field and we were lucky enough to put some kicks in the right spots to get some results as well... really happy with the result, really happy we were able to withstand and be resilient for 60 minutes and then surge at the back end of the game."

Smith said he thought both halves - Jake Clifford and Thomas Duffy - were strong.

"Cliff and Duff, especially in that second half, I love seeing both those guys run the ball... Cliff is a really strong runner of the ball... and they both ran the ball in that second half and we were able to get some joy out of that. When we run the footy we're a better football team," Smith said.

"The forwards held their own today. The Falcons are a strong team and they've been blowing teams away... I think our forward pack today, held their own and did a good job, able to withstand a lot of their charges. Their football comes off the back of the ruck speed that they gather and I thought we were able to nullify that pretty well today and able to get some results through the middle ourselves."

Smith said his side had the bye next week and would face Burleigh Bears in the final round of the season before finals.

"The win today actually wraps up the minor premiership for us so that in itself is a nice little reward for all of the effort that the whole squad and whole staff has put in since November," Smith said.

"Obviously that's not the trophy we're after but it's a nice reward for all of the hard work... we've been consistent throughout the year.... there's still some things we want to sharpen up... we've got two weeks until we play Burleigh in our last game, so there's definitely some things in that game that we'd like to manage a little bit better than we did tonight, but those games, sometimes they force you into playing some football you're not used to, and I think that was the case today.

"I think the Falcons really put us under pressure and made us work for it, we had to dig deep and we had to wait and be patient for the back end of the game to be able to come over the top. We've got some things to do and sharpen up before finals."

Smith added it was nice to play that game in the 2014 strip, in honour of the team that won the grand final who were all there to witness it; as was former Pride coach and now competitions manager Dave Maiden.

"They presented the jerseys to the playing squad today... I thought it was a nice touch from the club, that we played in that strip today, making sure we remember past players," Smith said.