NRL
NORTH Queensland may have only beaten a depleted Manly, but the victory was crucial to their top-four hopes ahead of the most brutal representative period in Cowboys’ history.
North Queensland will beat teams better than Manly but the two competition points they earned last night at Brookvale Oval were critical to their back-to-back premiership hopes.
The Cowboys have now equalled their best start to a (NT times) Today: Warriors v Dragons (11:30am) at Mt Smart Stadium; Titans v Storm (1:30pm) at Cbus Super Stadium; Sharks v Broncos (3:30pm) at Southern Cross Group Stadium year with seven wins from nine games.
The Cowboys will lose at least six and possibly eight players to both Origin teams this series, a record for the club.
They have four in the Australian team to play New Zealand this Friday night: Johnathan Thurston, Michael Morgan, Matt Scott and James Tamou.
Come Origin time, those four will be joined by Lachlan Coote, Justin O’Neill and possibly Gavin Cooper or Kyle Feldt.
Those are key players to have battered in the most intense rugby league games of the year.
That number of Origin players will hurt the Cowboys in the back half of this season.
Which is why a clinical if uninspired 34-18 win over an injury-hit Manly meant so much.
The Cowboys remain entrenched in the top four and have a bye week before two of their toughest games this year, against the Storm away and Broncos at home.
The Cowboys are targeting teams in the opening 20 minutes and last night was an example of why, as they powered through the Sea Eagles to bag three tries in the space of nine minutes and set their victory up.
After 20 minutes of the match, the Cowboys had 70 per cent of possession.
Despite Manly never really threatening, the bunker was still a point of contention throughout the match, with Sea Eagles prop Siosia Vave putting his frustrations bluntly.
“You really paid a million f***ing dollars for that s**t?” he said to the referees after a bunker decision.
The worst decision made by the bunker was disallowing a try to Lachlan Coote for obstruction on Manly centre Jamie Lyon, despite Lyon clearly diving to fake contact.