Northern Sharks beat Nightcliff Dragons in 2024 NRL NT prelim final
The Northern Sharks are into their fourth grand final in a row after holding off Nightcliff, while the Palmerston women booked their own shot at glory. Read the latest NRL NT action.
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The Northern Sharks have a chance to defend their NRL NT title after fending off a late Nightcliff fightback to secure a win in the preliminary final.
A change in personnel meant the Sharks didn’t start the season as well as they would have liked, but they built through the year and are now set to play their fourth grand final in a row.
The Sharks started strong against the minor premier winning Dragons, and despite a late comeback from their rivals they did enough to secure a 34-26 win.
The Dragons had an unfortunate start to the outing when Emori Diqoniqere came off the field early with injury, compounding the absence of co-captain David Tabuai.
However, they did strike from the restart when stalwart Robbie Butcher kicked to the sideline where a Stylianos Vrontos raced on to the ball for the opener.
The lead was only temporary as the Sharks turned on their pressure game with their big runners including Adam Hall and Jacob McCarthy working the ball into opposition territory.
With pressure they were able to force mistakes and gain metres and from a strong carry from Samuel Pearson the Sharks unleashed Lachlan Natapu who bulldozed through to score.
Bradley Sneddon was another to break through the Sharks defence, supported in attack by Jacob Collie and again their effort resulted in a score, this time for Robert Temeamea-Rotaru.
Nightcliff looked on for a response when Butcher broke free and raced down field, but with no support he was caught, with the only being the sin binning of Thomas Laban.
Despite being a man down though, the Sharks took it up another level with Hall punching through for a try before Elliot Brice made it four for the half after more Nightcliff errors.
The Sharks compounded their lead in the second half with a McCarthy special crashing over the line, but from there the momentum twisted against them.
Butcher provided his side with control, while the likes of Brenton Motlop gave their fair share of big tackles in defence.
It was a short pass from Butcher that sent Shaun Wauchope racing through a gap for Nightcliff’s first, and from there the Dragons got into their rhythm.
Within minutes Trey Crowley was on the run too in a move that eventuated in a Villiami Mau score, while Timothy Muhamad dotted over not long after bringing the deficit from 20 to just two.
Sharks eventually stemmed the flow targeting Nightcliff’s maestro, and instead it was their own Mohamad Salih who directed the pace with his sweeping kicks.
The Sharks captain Hall fed off the occasion and put his side back on the attack, and when a couple more mistakes came from the Dragons it was him who went over again.
Vrontos did race to get one back for Nightcliff, but the side remained a converted try down and for all their efforts the ball went to Izaiah Waters who scored the finisher for Sharks on the siren.
The result means the Sharks will now progress to the grand final to face the Darwin Brothers to try and win their third premiership in four years.
“It’s great, we might have been here four years in a row, but this year was different,” Collie said.
“We didn’t start the year well, we had a very different side, but we kept some key players and had some key inclusions and built through the year and because of that it feels like our first grand final.
“We just played to our strengths of our current side, we’ve got a strong middle and we build to our edges, and then it just comes down to effort.
“They came back at us and we shouldn’t have let that happen, a lot of teams lose from there but we got ourselves out of that position in what was a big, hard game.”
Raiders women power past Litchfield into grand final
The Palmerston Raiders women have booked themselves a spot in next week’s grand final after beating a valiant Litchfield in the prelim final.
The minor premiers were forced to go the long way around after losing to the Darwin Brothers in the major semi-final, but they brought their A game early to beat the Bears 20-4 at TRL Stadium.
As is their custom the Raiders brought their power game through their forwards to tenderise the Litchfield defence and send all the pressure in one direction.
The Bears did what they could to escape through counter attacks off Emma Forsyth, Sophie Blake or Genna Stiles, while defending for their lives, but couldn’t find much room to make an impact.
Instead it was Kagui Gimini, the league’s leading try scorer, who struck the first blow attacking down the left wing for a good 40m to make the first score for Raiders.
It wasn’t long after that the likes of captain Lucy Aigea were once again bringing the hurt through their big carries and out from their midst the lively Freda Wosomo popped over for a try.
Victoria Alley, including off the tee, and Paige McCourt were also busy around the ground for a side that has been well-drilled in 2024.
The Raiders came out of half time with the same intensity, again pushing their way up the field until Aigea went bursting through a hole in the defence to post another try.
Litchfield didn’t let the now-daunting scoreboard dissuade their efforts and in defence they fought hard feeding off the leadership from Shari Togo.
Several Palmerston attacking efforts were scuppered by hard tackles, though the Bears suffered from loose handling when they had their own moments.
However, the Bears didn’t bow their heads turning their focus to avoiding a whitewash in what was minute by minute becoming their final match of the season.
They struck late up the ground and finally managed to slip through what had been a concrete Raiders’ defensive line for a Meg Clohesy score to give their supporters something to cheer.
But it was the Raiders who got to celebrate moments later as the siren went confirming they would get to battle in another grand final.
“We’re pumped after that, our confidence is up and hopefully we can carry that through this week and into the grand final,” Aigea said.
“Our focus was on working as a team and fixing those one percenters that we’ve been lacking, and against the Bears we did that.
“We’re very proud with how we’ve gone this year, we’ve faced a lot throughout the season, so to come out with that win is something we needed, particularly after that loss in the semis.”
The Raiders now go on to face the reigning premiers the Darwin Brothers in next week’s grand final, where they will be hoping to reverse the fortunes of last year’s tight result.
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Originally published as Northern Sharks beat Nightcliff Dragons in 2024 NRL NT prelim final
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