2012 Northern Pride RLFC season

2012 was the fifth competitive season for the Cairns based Skill360 Northern Pride Rugby League Football Club. They were one of 12 clubs that played in the seventeenth season of Queensland's top rugby league competition, QRL's Intrust Super Cup, with each team playing 11 home games and 11 away games over 26 weeks between March and September. In 2012 the Central Comets were renamed the CQ Capras.

A new feature in this season's draw was 'Country Week', which was introduced after the Pride successfully staged a fixture against Souths Logan in the remote Cape York community of Bamaga last year. This year's Country Week fixture was Round 17, held at Alec Inch Oval in the north-western mining town of Mt Isa.

The QRL scrapped the six-team finals series in favour of a five-team qualifying format.

Channel 9 gained the television broadcast rights, and they agreed to broadcast one game from each of the regional clubs in Cairns, Mackay and Rockhampton. Former broadcast partner, ABC had been unable (or unwilling) to broadcast games from locations outside south-east Queensland, resulting in the relocation of two of the Pride's home semi-finals to Brisbane, where the games were played in front of small crowds at a neutral venue, which disadvantaged the Pride, as well as costing the club a substantial amount of game-day revenue.

The Pride continued to find new ways to interact with fans and the Far North community. The Sea Swift 'Take Pride' program visited remote and regional schools promoting junior rugby league through fun-based rugby league activities and educational presentations. Home games were live-streamed via the Pride website, and from Round 5, away games were streamed as well. Commentary was provided by U-18s coach, Cameron 'Spilla' Miller and WIN TV's Adam Jackson. Pre-game interviews with the coach, half-time interviews with special guests, and post-match wrap-ups with the captain were posted on YouTube under the title 'Pride TV'. A e-newsletter was produced, called 'Pride Pulse' and Brett Anderson wrote a weekly column for the Cairns Post titled 'Pride Insider'.

The Pride had a shaky start to the season, with four straight losses in the first six rounds. One of their problems was the halves combination, having tried Robert Lui with Shaun Nona, then Ryan Ghietti with Nona, then Ghietti with Mitch Seri, and finally Ghietti with Ty Williams. Moving Williams to and taking Rod Jensen opff the bench and starting him at  helped the Pride win ten of the next sixteen rounds. However poor ball handling, a poor completion rate and poor execution saw them lose matches to lower placed teams. In Round 18 they lost to bottom placed Sunshine Coast Sea Eagles who had only won two games so far. Despite a few good wins in the last few rounds, the Pride finished the season in seventh place, missing out on a finals appearance for the first time in their short history.

At the end of the season, Head Coach David Maiden resigned, while fullback Chey Bird, who scored 572 points in 94 appearances for the Pride, retired along with former North Queensland Cowboys star Rod Jensen, who scored 36 tries in 69 games for the club, second on the Pride's all-time try scorer list.
 * Northern Pride 2012 ISC video highlights (7 videos).

2012 Season – Skill360 Northern Pride

 * Competition: Intrust Super Cup
 * Sponsor: Skill360

Coaches/Trainers

 * Coach: David Maiden
 * Assistant coach: David Westley
 * Mal Meninga Cup U-18s coach:
 * Cyril Connell Cup U-16s coach:
 * Strength and conditioning coach: Scott Callaghan

Captains

 * Ty Williams
 * Brett Anderson (Pre-season trial match, and Rounds 20 to 22)

Managers

 * Operations manager: Sheron McDougall
 * Team manager: Rob White
 * Club captain: Ben Laity
 * Business development manager: Brock Schaefer
 * Chief executive: Chris Sheppard
 * Chairman: Bob Fowler
 * Board of Directors: Nigel Tillett, David Smith, Craig Meiklejohn, Anthony Mirotsos, Bill Phillips, Bob Fowler.

2012 squad
The Pride used 34 players this season. Nineteen players from last year signed with the club again, and six of the Cowboys allocation players from last year were assigned to the Pride again this year. Nine new players made their debut this season; seven were new signings (Brent Oosen, Ethan Lowe, Justin Castellaro, Maddie Oosen, Mitchell Seri, Saia Makisi and Scott Gibson), and two were new Cowboys allocation players (Robert Lui* and Wayne Ulugia*).

Ty Williams (c)

Alex Starmer

Ben Fitzpatrick

Ben Laity

Ben Spina

Brent Oosen

Brett Anderson

Chey Bird

Davin Crampton

Ethan Lowe

Hezron Murgha

Jamie Frizzo

Jason Roos

Justin Castellaro

Luke Saunders

Maddie Oosen

Mark Dalle Cort

Mitchell Seri

Noel Underwood

Rod Jensen

Ryan Ghietti

Saia Makisi

Scott Gibson

Shaun Nona

Aaron Binawel

Billy McConachie

Francis Mosby

Jamie Kerwick

Joel Marama

Justin Dolan

Masi Nona

Rickki Sutherland

Rohan Schultz

Troyson Bassani

Wees Nawia

Blake Leary*

Cory Paterson*

James Segeyaro*

Joel Riethmuller*

Kalifa Faifai Loa*

Luke Harlen*

Ricky Thorby*

Robert Lui*

Scott Bolton*

Wayne Ulugia*

Allocated but did not play for the Pride in 2012:

Aaron Payne

Ashley Graham

Brenton Bowen

Dallas Johnson

James Tamou

Matthew Bowen

Ray Thompson

2012 season launch

 * Pre-Season Training: 22 November 2011
 * Pre-Season Boot Camp: Djarragun Farm in the Goldsborough Valley – Friday 16-Sunday 18 December 2011. 110 players and coaching staff from all three squads (Intrust Super Cup, Under-18 and Under-16) attended the boot camp. Video Highlights.
 * Photo Shoot: 7 January 2012, Family Day and team photo shoot at Rainforeststation, Kuranda.
 * Season launch: 31 January 2012, Barlow Park.
 * Meet the Players: 10:00 am, 18 February 2012, Hip Pocket Work Wear, Mulgrave Road, Cairns.
 * Jersey Launch: 9 March 2012, Stockland Shopping Centre, Earlville.

2012 player awards

 * Sea Swift Most improved player: Brent Oosen
 * Sea Swift Photographers Choice Award: Scott Gibson
 * Sea Swift Season Members Player of the Year: Alex Starmer
 * Sea Swift Best Back: Brett Anderson
 * Sea Swift Best Forward: Ben Spina
 * Sea Swift Players' Player: Ben Spina
 * Club Person of the Year: O'Kane/Wilson Family
 * Skill360 Australia Northern Pride Player of the Year: Ben Spina
 * QRL Carbine Club Rookie of the Year: Ethan Lowe

2012 player records

 * Most Games: Ben Spina (22), Ethan Lowe (22).
 * Most Tries: Brett Anderson (14).
 * Most Points: Brett Anderson (56).

Northern Pride (regular season 2012)

 * Win = 12 (8 of 11 home games, 4 of 11 away games)
 * Loss = 9 (2 of 11 home games, 7 of 11 away games)
 * Draw = 1 (1 of 11 home games, 0 of 11 away games).

2012 Televised Games
In 2012, the Nine Entertainment Network acquired the broadcast rights to the Queensland Cup in a one-year deal, after ABC TV's contract expired. One game a round continued to be broadcast, live, and free-to-air across Queensland. In 2012 games were shown on Channel 9 or GEM in south-east Queensland, on WIN Television (RTQ) in regional areas, and on Imparja Television in remote areas, at 2.00pm (AEST) on Sunday afternoons (except during coverage of the London Olympics in August). The move to a Sunday timeslot meant the QCup match was shown at 2:00 pm before the Wide World of Sports NRL match of the round at 4:00 pm, which greatly increased ratings. The commentary team was Andrew Voss, Ben Ikin and Nick Curry.

The ABC had been unable (or unwilling) to broadcast games from locations outside south-east Queensland, as the cost of doing so was estimated to be $90,000 - more than double the cost of a Brisbane broadcast, so the Pride, Cutters and CQ Capras's home games had not been televised. Channel 9 agreed to broadcast one game from each of the three regional clubs, with the Pride's first home game broadcast from Barlow Park, Cairns in Round 13, Sunday 10 June 2012 against traditional rivals Mackay Cutters.

In 2012 the Pride appeared in three televised games:
 * Round 6: Northern Pride lost to Tweed Heads Seagulls 22–24 at Piggabeen Sports Complex, Tweed Heads
 * Round 12: Northern Pride lost to Ipswich Jets 14–38 at North Ipswich Reserve, Ipswich
 * Round 13: Northern Pride beat Mackay Cutters 36–10 at Barlow Park, Cairns

Live Streaming
In 2011 the Pride began live-streaming their home games, starting with the last home game of the season (Round 22 against Tweed Heads). For the 2012 season, home games were live-streamed via the Pride website using video distribution service Rivus TV Ltd. Games were free for members to watch, and $5 per game for non-members. From Round 5 2012 away games were streamed through the website as well.