2016 was the ninth competitive season for the Cairns based Sea Swift Northern Pride Rugby League Football Club. They were one of 14 clubs that played in the twenty-first season of Queensland's top rugby league competition, QRL's Intrust Super Cup, with each team playing 12 home games and 11 away games over 25 weeks between March and August.
Five experienced players retired at the end of the 2015 season: Alex Starmer, Semi Tadulala and Sam Obst along with co-captains Brett Anderson and Jason Roos retired, and Hezron Murgha retired from the Cowboys and signed with the Blackhawks. Between them they had played almost 700 QCup games. The new squad for 2016 was much younger, with an average age of 21, the youngest squad the Pride ever had. The new captain was Ryan Ghietti, who had represented Italy at the 2013 Rugby League World Cup, had played 96 QCup games, and had joined the Pride from Redcliffe Dolphins in 2011. Jack Svendsen was vice-captain, with Luke George filling the role during pre-season trials. A new senior leadership group was selected with the captain and vice-captains joined by Justin Castellaro and Tom Hancock.
At the start of the season there was talk of offering a contract to Shaun Nona, the Tully player who made 25 appearances for the Pride in 2014 before heading to the Melbourne Storm. Nona eventually signed with Mackay Cutters, but then reneged and went to the Intrust Super Premiership NSW Illawarra Cutters, who were coached by former Pride coach Jason Demetriou.
Bob Fowler stood down as Chairman, a position he had held since 2009. He was replaced by interim chairman Terry Mackenroth, who had been Deputy Premier of Queensland and a former director of Queensland Rugby League and the Australian Rugby League. Mackenroth restructured the club's corporate governance and changed the Pride from an incorporated association to a company limited by guarantee, which was one of the requirements of the NRL's elite pathways.
One of the changes suggested was to rename the Northern Pride. The introduction of the Townsville Blackhawks into the competition last year led some Board members to suggest the Pride should be rebranded to reflect the Cairns and Far North Queensland region. The idea was soon shouted down by players and fans.
In order to try and boost crowd numbers, home games were moved from Saturday evenings, to 3:00pm Sunday afternoons, in what the CEO thought was a more family friendly time slot.
In an effort the generate income (the Pride being one of only five QCup teams that are not supported by gambling revenue from a leagues club), the Pride offered businesses the opportunity to sponsor an individual player's jersey for $6,500. The concept had been introduced in the NRL, but was a first for the Intrust Super Cup.
The QRL reduced the number of interchanges this year, following the NRL, dropping interchanges from ten to eight per game. The Pride suffered from a raft of injuries at the end of last season, and so this year they introduced a 'High Performance Unit' made up of doctors, physios, dieticians and coaches who worked with the players to curb injuries and ensure player peaked at the right times. The club introduced GPS tracking for players to monitor workloads.
The Pride took one of their home games, Round 11 against Burleigh Bears up onto the Atherton Tablelands to Atherton Showground, and Country Week, Round 20 against Redcliffe Dolphins was played at Ravenshoe.
Although the Pride had some good wins, 48-0 against Tweed Heads in Round 6, and beat five of the top seven sides, consistency and defence were troublesome for the young side. The Pride won just 11 of their 23 matches and finished in eighth place, their worst season to date. For the first time they lost more home games than they won, and for the second time in their history they missed out on playing in the finals.
At the end of the season, coach Joe O'Callaghan resigned to take up an assistant coaching position at Wynnum-Manly. The players became increasingly unhappy with their options for next year, with some claiming they were offered reduced deals. Several players signed to other clubs. After the final round of the season, the board sacked CEO Rod Jensen. Former Pride player, Chey Bird, was appointed interim CEO.
The Pride used just 27 players this season. Fourteen players from last year signed with the club again, and three of the Cowboys allocation players from last year were assigned to the Pride again this year. Ten new players made their debut this season; eight were new signings (Akeripa Tia-Kilifi, Ben Reuter, Brayden Torpy, Khan Ahwang and Rajan Opetaia-Halls, with Colin Wilkie, Fred Koraba and Greg Miglio signed to the Club via the Pride's CDRL Portability Program), and two were new Cowboys allocation players (Coen Hess* and Shaun Hudson*).
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<br /><br />Allocated but did not play for the Pride in 2016:<br /> <br /> <br />
28 August 2016, Brothers World of Entertainment, Manunda
Played for Italy Azzurri in the 2017 Rugby League World Cup qualification
The first life memberships were awarded at a pre-game luncheon, Round 22, 7 August 2016, Barlow Park.
In August 2012 as part of the historic $1 billion five-year broadcasting agreement with Nine and Fox Sports, the Australian Rugby League Commission confirmed that Intrust Super Cup matches would be televised by Channel 9 until 2018. One match a week is shown live across Queensland at 2.00pm (AEST) on Sunday afternoons on Channel 9 (or GEM), on WIN Television (RTQ) in regional areas and on Imparja Television in remote areas. The match is also broadcast in Papua New Guinea on Kundu 2 TV. The 2015 commentary team is Peter Psaltis, Scott Sattler and Mathew Thompson.
In 2016 the Pride appeared in two televised games: