JT says good start vital against wily Rooster

JOHNATHAN Thurston has pledged to go down fighting to save the Cowboys from the wooden spoon as the champion playmaker braces for a showdown with former Maroons partner-in-crime Cooper Cronk.

Thurston and Cronk formed one of the great Origin scrumbase combinations, steering the Maroons to five series wins in six years before announcing their representative retirements last season.

Now they will square off as enemies for one final time, with the retiring Thurston hoping his struggling Cowboys can morph into giant-killers to upset Cronk’s Roosters on Saturday night at Allianz Stadium.

While they were equally potent as Queensland’s halves, Cronk has the edge on Thurston in the premiership arena.

In 21 meetings at club level, Cronk leveraged the success of his former club Melbourne to compile a formidable 13-8 record over Thurston, for a 62 per cent success rate.

In finals, Thurston landed some telling blows, beating Cronk in three of four playoff matches when stakes were at their highest.

Thurston last week reprised his Dally M heroics to inspire a last-minute 20-18 defeat of Newcastle, but the Cowboys maestro admits his 15th-placed side will be torn apart by Cronk if they start poorly.

“Our starts have been terrible all year and we need to fix that up against the Roosters,” said Thurston, after the Cowboys leaked two tries in seven minutes against the Knights.

“If we don’t start well, instead of being 18-6 down (at halftime against Newcastle), it will be 40-6 with someone like Cooper in the Roosters team.

“We need to keep building some momentum. The Roosters, Broncos and Sharks (the Cowboys’ next three opponents) are vying for top-four spots, so we need to show the resilience we showed in the second half last week.”