It's a battle of the birds in this week's Hostplus Cup 'Match of the Round' but who will swoop and dominate at Davies Park on Sunday afternoon, as the Magpies and Falcons square-off in Round 4.
Blake Mozer may not be a Jedi but he is returning and will hopefully bring some of his special powers this week.
The Souths hooker hurt his shoulder and hasn’t played a Hostplus Cup game in 2025.
He played eight NRL games in 2024 and was slowing building momentum scoring his first NRL try against the Dragons.
On Sunday, he will be drawing on his 34 Hostplus games for Souths Logan to get the Magpies flying forward in 2025.
Souths have started the season with two losses and it won’t be worrying yet, but if it creeps to three this week against the Sunshine Coast Falcons then there might be some heads dropping.
Souths defence is a concern with 66 points against them from two games.
Against the Devils last week, Souths started well and a nicely constructed try got the Magpies attack humming.
Coby Black was the smartest kid in the class when he went from the left-hand side to the right-hand side and allowed Pride Petterson-Robati to play out the back of him creating space and time for the young half to step inside and score.
It was smart from the Magpies.
Mozer will allow Black to play with width to get outside the defenders.
From there, the Magpies allowed Norths to keep scoring, and score in clumps of tries, which always puts pressure on your defence.
Handling errors and penalties from the more experienced Magpies was a curse they kept revisiting until they couldn’t stop the Norths - 14 handling errors is too much.
Experience is what the Magpies have and will need to show this week and some guile from their hooker.
The Falcons have started the season with a win and a loss, so they will be hoping that another win comes their way.
Sunshine Coast didn’t do a lot wrong against the Western Clydesdales last round and if they bring that sort of form again then a win will enter the equation.
The Falcons' start require attention - the Clydesdales Joseph Litidamu had two tries before halftime and a third by the 55th minute of play.
Sunshine Coast stayed in the game with excellent forward momentum but their end to sets left them nowhere they wanted to be on the field.
When the Falcons beat the Hunters, they controlled where they gave the Hunters the ball and when they gave it to them.
Cody Hunter was starting and ending sets where he wanted to be able to.
This was on the back of great work by Grant Anderson who made 202 metres for the Falcons but has since returned to the Melbourne Storm.
If the Falcons can control the set, then bench weapon Angus Hinchey can prise open the Souths defence.
Hinchey is the edge running smart option that the Melbourne Storm adore with all their hearts.
Hinchey has played six Hostplus Cup games and if Cody Hunter can unlock Hinchey he will find a willing hole-running option.
Hinchey scored nine tries in 36 games for the Melbourne Storm in the Jersey Flegg competition back in 2023 and 2024.
If Souths don’t get their spacing right then Hinchey can expose space on the left hand side.
When he played in Mal Meninga Cup presented by Ford, he scored four tries in 10 games.
This game is the best of the Broncos against the Storm with both teams having young NRL players ready to show they can play Hostplus Cup.
You can watch this weekend’s Hostplus Cup Match of the Round live and free on 9Now and Kayo, as well as Queensland Rugby League’s home of live streaming Qplus.tv
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