Tesi Niu may not be off-contract for much longer after producing a man of the match performance in Sunday’s Queensland Cup grand final. The NRL Dolphins’ two feeder sides — Norths Devils and Redcliffe Dolphins — faced off in the decider with the former winning the premiership in a 34-20 victory. It’s the Devils’ third premiership in four years having also won in 2021 and 2022. The 2022 win was also over the Dolphins.
Mason Teague, who is also on a Top 30 contract with the Dolphins, was enormous for the Devils, finishing with 145 running metres and 45 tackles — no misses. The 21-year-old lock has a mutual option for 2025 in his contract. Fullback Jordan Lipp scored 14 of the Devils’ 34 points with a try and five conversions from six attempts. He also set up a try, got a linebreak, a linebreak assist and ran 94 metres.
The premiership caps off a successful year for Tuki Simpkins, who has picked up a development deal with the Titans for next season. The 22-year-old prop joined Norths this season after being let go by the Wests Tigers and had arguably his best year to date. Simpkins played 19 games out of a possible 23 this season. He averaged 110 metres and 19 tackles a game to earn Prop of the Year honours for the competition. Simpkins finished the grand final with a try assist, a linebreak, 83 metres and 12 tackles — four misses — in his 33-minute stint.
The Devils’ season is quite finished yet — they’ll face the New South Wales Cup premiership-winner in the State Championship on NRL Grand Final day. The Dolphins put up an admirable fight with five-eighth Thomas Casey particularly impressing. The 23-year-old had a try assist, a linebreak assist, three tackle busts and ran 124 metres.
It was only Casey’s fourth appearance of the season and sixth overall. He played off the bench in the Dolphins’ preliminary final win but Trai Fuller’s ACL injury sparked a spine reshuffle which opened up a spot for case in the halves. Valynce Te Whare was busy as well with three tackle busts, 178 running metres and 17 tackles — one miss. Like Niu, Te Whare is also without an NRL deal for next season.
This result was predictable without Redcliffe's best player for the last few season, Fuller. Norths had more Dolphins squad players in the 17.
