Despite scoring three tries to two, Pirates went down 20-15 to Kempsey which means they are now relying on an unlikely sequence of events to make the finals.

With a bye next week, they now need Wauchope Thunder to beat Southern Cross University Marlins and hope Kempsey can defeat Grafton by a large margin.

Coach Stewart Robertson was left to rue a match that might have been.

“We’re done for the year,” he conceded.

“We weren’t consistent enough; we had our opportunities and now we’re relying on other results.”

He did manage to look at their dire situation with some humour.

“The only glimmer of hope we have is that playing for Wauchope Thunder is on Jarryd Hayne’s bucket list,” Robertson said.

Tries to Christo Wilken, Raven Nurse and Chris Geary would not be enough as the visitors held on.

Pirates led 10-8 at the break despite the Cannonballs receiving their fair share of possession.

A couple of years ago Pirates needed Coffs Harbour to lose to last place so they would finish in the top two.

That happened and Pirates snuck in.

They’ll hope for a repeat sequence of events as they cool their heels next weekend.