It was a hot day in Ipswich when the Llewellyn Motors Ipswich Jets welcomed the Townsville Blackhawks for their annual Defence Force Appreciation game.
The Blackhawks started well when Ty Carucci scored his third competition try in two weeks when he dived on a well-placed Kierran Moseley kick into the Jets’ in goal and after five minutes, the Blackhawks were up 4-0.
On the back of a great Andrew Niemoeller run, Townsville went to the same side again, counted numbers and the Jets were short; leading to Josh Hall scoring his first Intrust Super Cup try.
It took 13 minutes, but the Jets got moving when noted speedster Michael Purcell decided to move in-field and kick for himself. He spotted former Jet Carlin Anderson out of position and was able to score on tackle two near the posts.
The Jets were on the attack after a penalty from the kick off and Richard Pandia on the right wing ran back infield at inside shoulders to leave the Blackhawks exposed. The Jets now had the lead 12-10.
Townsville then displayed some flair coming out of their own half when half Michael Parker-Walshe kicked down the left-hand side for a flying Anderson, who made a great grab before going in to score.
The lead had changed again with the visitors back in front 16-12.
Parker-Walshe showed he didn’t just have kicking game, but a sneaky running game too when he jumped on a juggling ball and ran 40m to score in the corner and put his side up 22-12 at halftime.
Seven minutes into the second half, Purcell tried his "kick for himself" trick again, but this time it resulted in Jonathon Rueben running the length of the field and scoring to give the Blackhawks a further 28-12 advantage.
Jets’ bench hooker Mikaere Beattie showed great game awareness to dive over from dummy half to start the Jets’ second half fightback and exposed some poor goal line defence from the Blackhawks.
At 28-18, the Jets had plenty of time to take the lead; however, that optimism began to evaporate when the Blackhawks put it through the hands and Hall had try number two.
The ever optimistic Purcell didn’t get the memo about the Jets’ being out of the contest, because he chased a beautiful Dane Phillips’ grubber to ground the ball in front of two defenders.
Luke Capewell converted his fourth goal for the day for an eight-point difference at 32-24 and he was in the game again with 14 minutes to go when he slotted a penalty goal to make it 32-26.
But big Blackhawk Dan Beasley then picked up a rolling ball and charged over to seal the win for the NQ side 39-26.
See the full scoring details and final team line ups for this game via QRL live
TOWNSVILLE BLACKHAWKS 39 (Joshua Hall 2, Ty Carucci, Carlin Anderson, Michael Parker-Walshe, Jonathon Reuben, Daniel Beasley tries; Carlin Anderson 5 goals; Michael Parker-Walshe field goal) def IPSWICH JETS 26 (Michael Purcell 2, Richard Pandia, Mikaere Beattie tries; Luke Capewell 5 goals) at North Ipswich Reserve.
