Townsville Bulletin

Awesome foursome

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brimming with confidence after his debut Origin series for Queensland.

Morgan returned from his time in Maroons camp with greater self- belief while surgery to remove a plastic screw floating in his ankle has given the 23- year- old greater confidence to play his natural game.

“The one thing Origin has done is the expectatio­ns on me and how profession­al I have to be to continue improving in the game,’’ said Morgan. ‘‘ I can’t get comfortabl­e and hopefully I can build on that to the back end of the year.

“My ankle is really, really good. It feels so much better

COMBINED STATS FOR EACH TEAM’STEAM’ FULLBACK, FIVE-FIVE EIGHTH,EIGHTH HALFBACK AND HOOKERHOO FOR 2015 North Queensland Brisbane Canberra Warriors Sydney Roosters Manly Melbourne Wests Tigers Parramatta South Sydney St George Illawarra Canterbury Newcastle Penrith Cronulla Gold Coast Titans

than before, I’m not going into games thinking about it or thinking about it in games.

‘‘ It’s not sore. It’s the best it’s been in eight weeks.

“There was a loose screw in there bouncing around. It feels better now that is gone.”

The Cowboys are determined not to get swept away in hype or allow their ladder

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position to open the door for potential complacenc­y.

The fact the Broncos sit above them on the ladder should at least dilute the expectatio­ns and hysteria in Queensland about a potential Cowboys premiershi­p while North Queensland focus simply on winning.

“The goal is always to fin-

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ish as high as possible,’’ said Morgan. “But at the same time it sounds boring but we really are talking one game at a time.

“We have a few tough games coming up and teams who are really trying to get into the eight and they’re going to be throwing everything at us to get there.”

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