Northern Pride agrees to move before 2022 season
Northern Pride will finally have a home of their own as soon as November after a plan to move their base of operations was rubber-stamped by the Intrust Super Cup club’s board.
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NORTHERN Pride will finally have a home of their own as soon as November after a plan to move their base of operations to Jones Park rubber-stamped by the Intrust Super Cup club’s board.
The Pride is the only club in the Intrust Super Cup without a dedicated home base.
They have been based at Barlow Park since their inception more than a decade ago, operating out of the Moore Family Sports House alongside the Cairns District Rugby League headquarters.
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The club has explored a move to Jones Park, the home of Cairns District Junior Rugby League, several times before to house the club’s growing base of players and provide a sense of identity to the Pride, though it never came to fruition - until now.
From November, the Pride’s administration and football staff will operate out of Jones Park. Games will be played at Barlow Park, but the club’s five teams - and potentially more in future - will train at the Mann St fields.
Pride chairman Nigel Tillett told the Cairns Post that a move in November was tentative, with work still to be completed at the Westcourt venue, but it will give the club - what it has lacked for more than decade - a home.
That home will be shared with the CDJRL, allowing Far North juniors to train alongside and regularly see the region’s top-tier rugby league team put in their work - and Tillett hopes that will further strengthen the connection between the Pride and community rugby league.
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“We’re not a one-team club, we have five teams, which could one day become six, and you can’t effectively run all of those teams out of Barlow Park,” Tillett said. “You can do that at Jones Park.”
“We’re pleased with the decision which was made. A lot of work still needs to be done.”
Pride coach Ty Williams said the move to Jones Park would provide the club a “place of belonging”, and was excited about how it could help further develop and strengthen the region’s junior players.
“We’re the only club that doesn’t have our own base as we have no facility,” he said.
“Just to walk out onto a field which is ours will be huge. With the club set up alongside the juniors, it shows them the direct pathway to our club.”
The base will allow for better access to gyms, which will then mean the juniors in the Pride’s development system can have better access to specialised programs.
It’s an area the Pride lacks at the moment, and is evident in the way the club’s juniors were dominated by Mackay and Townsville teams.
“At 16s, it’s more the natural ability, but at 18s level it becomes more physical,” he said.
“We struggle physically (in the 18s) against those other clubs. But to be able to provide that will go a long way to giving our juniors a better base.”
matthew.mcinerney1@news.com.au
Originally published as Northern Pride agrees to move before 2022 season
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