SPORT Tigers feast on Cowboys

WESTS Tigers have hammered North Queensland with the equal-best first half of the joint venture’s history before surviving a brief fightback to beat the Cowboys 36-20.

In the truest definition of a game of two halves, the Tigers led 34-0 at the break, before North Queensland gave them a scare with three tries in seven minutes.

However, any hopes of a Cowboys comeback were put to bed when Esan Marsters was penalised for taking Moses Mbye off the ball.

It allowed Mbye to kick the

Tigers back 20 points clear with 17 minutes to play, putting the game to bed and piling the pressure on Cowboys coach Paul Green.

The win momentarily moved the Tigers into the top eight but did come at a cost. Alex Twal suffered a medial injury in his knee.

He looks like spending a month on the sidelines.

Winger Robert Jennings also suffered a hamstring injury while scoring a try. And Zane Musgrove left the field late with a knee injury, leaving some concerns for coach Michael Maguire ahead of next week’s clash with Canterbury.

The Cowboys, missing Valentine Holmes, Michael Morgan and Jordan McLean, were poor from the outset.

Jason Taumalolo fumbled the ball on their first set of six, in a play which would sum up how the rest of their evening would play out.

Musgrove crossed from the next set, giving the Tigers one of two soft tries through the middle with Josh Aloiai scoring the other.

The Tigers appeared to make a point of targeting their former teammate Marsters, with three of their tries coming down that channel, the pick of them from Luke Brooks.