By MARK CASHMAN

Northern Suburbs went a long way to dispelling the myth that wet weather and the Shoreman don’t mix well in their 23-3 Shute Shield win over the Hunter Wildfires on Saturday in Newcastle.

Norths kept the Wildfires try less throughout what was a willing 80 minutes in conditions that were reminiscent of their extra time loss to Eastwood in the grand final qualifier last year at Rat Park.

After that heart breaker there were suggestions that Norths didn’t have a Plan B or a Plan C designed to cope with those sort of conditions.

They have worked hard on that in the off-season and Saturday at the Newcastle Sportsground No.2 presented the perfect opportunity to test the waters.

Flyhalf Angus Sinclair is a bit of hard marker and came away from the win happy, but with a few more things for the “to do list” as they prepare to take on Gordon at North Sydney Oval in Round Three.

“We definitely want to add some more aspects to our game but I thought that we were poor in attack on the weekend,” Sinclair said.

“Each week we are adding layers and you don’t want to show too much too soon, but keeping them try less was probably the best thing about our performance.

“We held them up over our try line a couple of times and James Turner did some great work to close down another opportunity at one stage with some great scrambling in defence.”

Sinclair is immersed in sport seven days a week working in sports management from Monday to Friday and then suiting for the Shoremen up on the weekend.

Norths coach Zak Beer actually welcomed the conditions in a game that had all the makings of a bit of an ambush in Newcastle.

“We needed to play in those sort of conditions and see how we coped,” Beer told Rugby News.

“It was one of those games when you just have to grind it out and the guys went about that well.

“The Wildfires probably wanted a stop start sort of game to bring their big boppers into play but we managed a lot of things on the run well.

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“Hunter are a different side to last year and when they are all on the same page they will trouble a lot of the top sides.”

Tyler Kearns made the most of his run-on debut against what was a huge pack but another recruit Brodie Leber, who has been the Aussie Sevens set up, made the most of his opportunity off the bench.

Dave Henaway was another solid contributor while Charlie Jeavons-Fellows was good over the ball and had a positive running game.

And looking ahead to next Saturday Sinclair is excited to be back on the hallowed turf of North Sydney Oval.

It’s been 18 months since Norths have played there with the pandemic and the cricket the major contributors in the hiatus.

“It’s going to be pretty exciting to get back on there (North Sydney Oval),” Sinclair added.

“Right from the time the draw came out everyone had put a line under that game and it’s just about with us.”

IMAGE: KAREN WATSON