Walker brothers take one of a kind Jets to Queensland Cup title

THERE’S not another team in the world who play like Ipswich and the Walker brothers were rewarded for their ingenuity with a Queensland Cup title.

The Ipswich Jets celebrate winning the Intrust Super Cup Grand Final between the Townsville Blackhawks and the Ipswich Jets. Pic Darren England.

SHANE Walker remembers the moment down to a minute.

As he drove from Tweed Heads to Ipswich with wife Katie after toppling the Seagulls in Round 23, it dawned on Walker that his Jets were bound for the Intrust Super Cup premiership.

“When did I think it was possible?” Walker said.

“At 9.07pm on the 23rd of August when we were driving home from beating Tweed I said to my beautiful wife ‘we won’t lose another game’.”

Ipswich vindicated Walker’s prediction, beating the fancied Townsville Blackhawks 32-20 in front of 8,086 at Suncorp Stadium to claim the club’s first premiership.

It’s been a long wait since the Jets’ foundation year in 1982 — with the club suffering four grand final losses before yesterday’s triumph — and it took the radical coaching method of brothers Shane and Ben Walker to finally deliver the holy grail.

Ipswich entered the decider as underdogs despite winning three knockout finals on their way to the decider and amassing 126 points during the elimination series.

The Blackhawks had been the dominant team all year.

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The Walker brothers unique style transformed the Jets into title contenders.

With 582 games of NRL experience in their squad, compared to Ipswich’s six, it was going to take a special effort to deny the competition’s newcomers a premiership in their debut season.

But Ipswich was up to the battle.

Townsville burst out of the blocks with Tom Humble scoring within three minutes and it took the Jets 20 minutes to warm into the contest. When they found their rhythm the points started to flow.

Electrifying winger Marmin Barba produced a 90m movement for Dane Phillips to score then bagged his own try after Blackhawks fullback Jahrome Hughes made a huge blunder.

Ipswich had to overcome the loss of forwards Josh Seage (concussion) and Kurt Capewell (ankle) but the match was as good as over five minutes into the second half when retiring skipper Keiron Lander and the “Fijian Ferrari” Nemani Valekapa scored.

Townsville fought back into the contest through Hughes and Robert Lui but it wasn’t enough.

“In December last year we spoke as a group. We thought there were three teams that could win it — the Blackhawks, PNG and us,” Ben Walker said.

“We genuinely believed we’d win the final. That’s all we’ve been working towards.

Marmin Barba starred for the Jets.

“The last couple of semis we weren’t first to score so it wasn’t foreign to us. It was a matter of getting into our rhythm. Once we do that we’re hard to contain.”

The Jets will get to showcase their unique attacking style on the biggest stage on NRL grand final day on Sunday when they face Newcastle, who beat Wyong yesterday to collect the NSW Cup.

It gives hooker Matt Parcell, who has scored nine tries in his past four matches, one last game with the Jets before he joins the Manly Sea Eagles.

“Throughout the year everyone said they liked the way we play but it couldn’t stand up in finals,” Parcell said.

“We’ve proved in the last month it can.

“Everyone plays for the jersey and each other. There’s no egos.

“To go down there in front of the biggest stage will be unbelievable.”

For the Blackhawks, they’ll look back on 2015 as a missed opportunity to join the Sunshine Coast (2009) as the only clubs to have won premierships in their debut seasons.

“In the heat of the moment we came up with some uncharacteristic plays and errors and Ipswich capitalised on that,” said Blackhawks skipper Dan Beasley.

“We knew it’d be an 80-minute grind but they turned up more than we did.”