Brisbane City win inaugural National Rugby Championship

Brisbane City recorded a 37-26 victory over the Perth Spirit to be crowned the inaugural National Rugby Championship winners.

After finishing third and fourth at the conclusion of the regular season, both sides put on a show of high quality rugby in front of a 7,889-strong crowd at Ballymore in Brisbane.

The last time these two sides met, Brisbane winger Junior Laloifi scored an 80-metre try to sink the Spirit with five minutes on the clock.

In a fitting finish, the Samoan flyer raced down the left hand sideline and beat three Perth defenders to put the final nail in the coffin five minutes from time.

The strengths of the two sides were in direct contrast, as the home side looked comfortable at set piece time and smartly exerted their dominance through that channel, while Perth picked off easy metres and threatened constantly in open play.

City’s three first-half tries all came off the back of crisp set piece play - man of the match Liam Gill and Pettowa Paraka grabbing five pointers to go with a penalty try that was as a direct result of City’s strong scrummaging.

Tries to Perth’s Ammon Matuauto and Robbie Abel added to Dane Haylett-Petty’s terrific take in the City in-goal area inside the first 40 as Brisbane went into the sheds up 24-21.

While Perth’s easy metres dried up in the second 40, City’s set piece dominance continued as scrum after scrum was blown in favour of City by referee Rohan Hoffman.

After yet another scrum penalty caused by the ferocious Paraka, he scored a carbon copy of his first half try - falling over the line after a 10 metre rolling maul to open up an eight point lead.

The Papua New Guinean prop walked off to a standing ovation from the Ballymore faithful at the 65 minute mark after a herculean performance before.

Brisbane City head coach Nick Stiles said his side’s front row laid the platform for the win. “Pettowa, Andrew Ready and Sef Faagase put together an outstanding performance,” he said.

Stiles said the side had come together as a unit from day one. “We spoke about getting the attitude right, the ability to work hard and enjoying ourselves along the way and at the end of the day, we did exactly that.

“We had some ups and downs but we always bounced back, worked hard and we’ve had a fantastic time.”