READY T O FIRE AS LINCHPINS RETURN
THE pain of their 2017 NRL grand final loss still burns for North Queensland but centre Justin O’Neill admits he’s still wondering how a misfiring Cowboys even got to the season decider.
The former Queensland centre says the only positive the Cowboys could take from their shattering defeat to Melbourne last year was that they made the final despite their backline’s difficulty in finding the try- line.
Much was made of North Queensland’s never- say- die defence during the injury- hit underdogs’ unlikely run to the decider.
However the Cowboys were 11th in attack ( 467pts) in the regular season after the likes of O’Neill ( one try for 2017), Lachlan Coote ( two), Antonio Winterstein ( four) and Kane Linnett ( five) fail- ed d t to f fire. The exception winger Kyle Feldt ( 15 tries).
“It’s crazy. I don’t think many of our backs scored many tries compared to ( 2016) but we still made it to a grand final,” O’Neill said.
“I would definitely like to be back scoring more tries.”
O’Neill expects the team’s potency to return with co- captains Johnathan Thurston and Matt Scott back from injury this year.
He says he looks forward to renewing his combination with Thurston, in what looms as his final NRL season.
“Not having JT there we had our halves and players move around in different positions – our attack probably changed a little bit,” he said.
“But they ( Thurston, Scott) are going to have a big impact.” was