IF Craig Field is a fighter pilot, Shannon Murphy is his heat-seeking missile.

Murphy was Field’s weapon of choice at Ned Byrne Field as Cudgen Hornets claimed a 30-12 victory over Casino in round four of the NRRRL.

An experiment in moving the experienced custodian to the centres paid dividends, as he scored a hat-trick of tries and generally caused mayhem on Casino’s left side.

If not for his generosity in handing the ball to winger Jackson Hardy for a try with the line wide open, Murphy could have easily had four to his name.

Half backField was constantly looking to switch the play and send the ball out to Murphy, who ran smart lines and busted through tackles.

His return to form was one of a number of positives for the Hornets to take from the win, not the least of which will be that the side can finally add two competition points to their tally – and this time, no one will take it away from them.

Having lost their points from an opening round win over Tweed Coast Raiders, then suffered two losses, the Hornets have gone a long way to putting their season back on track.

“We’re back in the hunt,” Hornets football operations manager Graeme Lawrence said, after breathing a sigh of relief.

“We didn’t make anywhere near the number of errors as we have in previous weeks and were able to put them under sustained pressure."

But the real test has just begun.

The Hornets hit the road for the next three rounds, with a Saturday night game against reigning premiers Grafton Ghosts up first.

Cudgen led all game, opening the scoring just minutes into the encounter through the Field-Murphy combination, with Murphy striding over the line from about five metres out after running onto a smart Field pass.

It was a similar story minutes later when second rower Matt Slattery ran on to another Field pass before barging over the line.

Yet another switch play where Field hit Murphy brought the score to 12-0.

Winger Joe Prichard crawled over the line to add more points for Cudgen, after centre Robert Prichard made a break from about 40m out, then handed him the ball with one defender to beat.

Fullback Jackson Sands took over the goal-kicking duties from Field, who had missed three from three, and slotted Cudgen’s first conversion of the match to make the score 18-0.

Casino got the next two tries, taking the score to 18-12 at half time, and battled hard in the early stages of the second half – almost scoring another try right after half time, but the Hornets held the player up over the line with some desperate defence.

The visitors never looked like scoring again, while the Hornets crossed another three times.