The SP PNG Hunters recent winning streak has ended at the hands of Souths Logan Magpies, falling short with a 40-10 score in Round 14 of the QRL Hostplus Cup that took place at the Santos National Football Stadium on Saturday afternoon. The Hunters looked confident working through their opening sets until a great tackle from Broncos-contracted hooker Blake Mozer forced an error in yardage. With the ensuing field position, Italian International representative, Jack Campagnolo orchestrated a left edge movement that ended with centre Jesse Jennings steaming through the line to score. Mozer was at it again for the visitors shortly afterwards, bamboozling the Hunters ruck defence with great deception to pass another Broncos-affiliated player, Benjamin Tu Kura, into another try scoring situation beside the posts. With full confidence, Souths Logan made a line break from the following kick off and looked like going the length. Some desperate cover defence from Benji Kot and Joshua Lau saved the day for the Hunters on this occasion, but the Magpies went quickly back on the attack. They came close to scoring again when Mozer darted from dummy-half late in the count, only for Kot to again produce a big defensive play for his teammates. The Hunters made the most of their possession to work up field and into position for an attacking kick. This saw a perfectly weighted Hunters five-eighth, Joshua Mire bomb was well supported by Brandon Nima and Lau in the kick-chase, forcing the error from the Magpies defence. Kot was the man on the spot to collect the loose ball from there, completing an athletic, diving effort in the corner to score the Hunters first points. When Hunters, Casey Dickson was sent to the sinbin in the 31st minute for a tackle gone wrong, Souths Logan struck with two opportunistic tries in the shadows of halftime. Despite being down 24-4 going into the sheds, the Hunters weren’t far away and again looked likely in the opening exchanges of the half. They were matching the Magpies in the yardage battle until another sinbin once again gave Souths Logan a numerical advantage on the field. Absorbing a mountain of pressure in their own half, the Hunters exploded to life the first time they worked into Magpies territory. A great run from Trevor Solu burned the markers and split the ruck defence, and Mire backed it up with another clever run from dummy-half to score. Mire almost went back-to-back in the kickoff set. The Hunters rolled downfield and found easy metres on the edges before setting up on the right tram line. A four-pass shift to the left edge ended in the hands of Mire, who broke through the line but lost possession in the cover tackle. Buoyed by their defence, the Magpies dominated the next 10 minutes. They played most of their footy in PNG territory and the pressure eventually told when fullback Braden Whittaker broke into the backfield on a kick return. Souths Logan winger Jack Smith iced the play on the following tackle to give the Magpies a 34-10 lead. The craft and speed of Magpies hooker, Mozer from dummy-half picked apart the Hunters ruck defence around the posts and prop-forward Logan Bayliss was the beneficiary in the 73rd minute, taking the Magpies tally to 40 points. Despite finishing on the wrong end of a lopsided scoreboard, the Hunters weren’t far off the competition leading Magpies in this one. They were competitive in yardage and the more aggressive side in defence for most of the contest. They kept themselves in the fight through until the fulltime siren, but just lost too many small moments throughout the match. Those small moments eventually added up for the Hunters while Souths Logan showed why they sit atop the QRL Hostplus Cup ladder after 14 rounds played. Meanwhile, SP PNG Hunters Coach, Stanley Tepend, who was bitterly disappointed with the end result, stating that they let themselves down. However, was proud of his team’s effort, particularly in defence, but pointed to poor execution and ill-discipline as reasons for the loss. “Our effort in defence was great but a couple of poor passes and some silly errors or penalties just gave them too many chances. We’ve been much better with our discipline the last few weeks and I thought we’d turned a corner, but those sinbins really hurt us and we lost our concentration and execution in attack.” On a more positive note, Tepend was pleased to see Ila Alu return from injury and hopes to have a full and healthy squad available for selection next week. “It’s good to have competition for positions and we should have close to a full strength team available next week. We’ve got an extra day’s preparation before the Falcons game (next Sunday, 25th June) so we’ll work hard at training and look to bounce back next week.”