Devils determined to turn Queensland fortunes around

They are not the only Queensland team to have struggled. After going back-to-back when the concept first began in 2015, with Jason Demetriou’s Northern Pride winning the inaugural game, followed by the Ben and Shane Walker coached Ipswich Jets, the NSW clubs have been dominating the competition since 2016.

“As staff, we're always looking ahead and preparing, you never know with finals and outcomes and that sort of stuff, but it's part of our job to think about it in the background and let the players focus week-to-week,” Devils coach Dave Elliott said of shifting focus to the national game following the grand final win.

“We had thought about that a bit and how good an opportunity that would be for us to go down there and represent our club, our families, our community and obviously ourselves.

“It's a bit bigger than that now, we get to go down and represent our competition.

“I know after we celebrate and enjoy ourselves and stay tight together, we'll refocus and some of the boys have already said that, ‘let's go to Sydney and let's have another crack down there’.

“I know they’ll be really focused.”

For Dolphins contracted forward Oryn Keeley, the experience of not having the home crowd on their side was something he’d gotten used to during the finals series after the Devils claimed their title in front of a parochial 7000+ crowd at Kayo Stadium, home of both the Redcliffe Dolphins in the Cup and the Dolphins NRL side.

“The game was awesome,” Keeley said. “I think the atmosphere out here was just awesome and at the end of the day, it was their home crowd and I feel like last week (in the preliminary final), there was a lot of PNG Hunters fans out there and they probably tested us and it probably helped us.”

Keeley – who played six game for the Dolphins this year – was also hoping their tough encounter with Redcliffe would have the Devils well-prepared for a physical Jets side.

“That was quick as and I feel like that was brutal; one of the most brutal games I've been a part of,” Keeley said.

“Everyone wants to just win, so everyone's doing anything they can to win.”

For fellow NRL Dolphin Mason Teague, the opportunity to wrest back the trophy for the Queensland competition was a privilege and was counting on his teammates to again step up for their new challenge.

“It's really good to be part of Norths this year and I'm really happy to get the win, the boys are a really good bunch," Teague said. 

“It’s obviously a good privilege to win (our grand final) and we're to go down there and get another win.

“I think our forward pack was good, we started really well.

“Our backs Jordan Lipp, I think he was all over for us, but Tesi Niu, he's probably my favourite today (against the Dolphins).

“I don't think they could tackle him at all today.

“He set up most of our tries and he was our best.”

Newtown come into the game after shaking off the challenge of the North Sydney Bears last week and have plenty of class and NRL experience throughout their lineup.

With Braden Hamlin-Uele up front, Sam Stonestreet on the wing and Jayden Berrell – who played against the Devils in Wynnum Manly’s 2021 loss and against others in their current line-up on his way to winning player of the year honours that same year – Norths have their work cut out for them to change the tide, espeically with the Devils to be missing Hostplus prop of the year Tukimihia Simpkins and livewire Julian Christian from the bench.