The Skill360 Northern Pride went down 30-18 to the Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles yesterday afternoon at Stockland Park on the Sunshine Coast.

The day started off poorly for the Pride with Chris Sheppard succumbing to a hamstring injury in the warm-up with Quincy To'o To'o moving into the playmaking role.

The game also started poorly with the Sea Eagles jumping out to a 12-nil lead in the first 20 minutes of the game before the Pride consolidated and played some good footy to score tries through Rod Jensen and Greg Byrnes to head into half-time at 12-all.  Head Coach Andrew Dunemann spoke at half-time about his "pleasure with the effort and attitude required to get back into the game after such a slow start and the need to continue it while sticking to the game plan to come away with a valuable two points."

The second half started with the Sea Eagles being the first try scorer before the Pride hit back with Hezron Murgha finishing a Chris Riesen line break to level the game at 18-all with around 20 minutes remaining in the match.  From this point some poor decision-making and poor 5th tackle options led to field position and easy set re-starts for the Sea Eagles who went on to run in two more tries and finish the game 30-18 winners.

That is two losses in a row now for the Pride and while results in the Queensland Cup have meant that the Pride maintain outright 3rd spot the chasing pack is now only one win away.

Dunemann, Jensen, Cantoni, Riethmuller and Humble will represent Queensland Country against City in Ipswich on Saturday afternoon 4th July.  The City v Country game will be the ABC televised game of the round with all other Queensland Cup teams having the weekend off.

The Skill360 Northern Pride will return the week after (Saturday 11th July) to take on the fourth placed Burleigh Bears at Barlow Park in a very important game.