No Thurston, No worries for Cowboys

No Thurston? No worries for the North Queensland Cowboys, who embarrassed the Newcastle Knights 22-12 at Austgrid Stadium tonight.

Few gave the fifth-placed visitors any hope against their red-hot hosts without Johnathon Thurston, who will miss at least four weeks after injuring a knee in Origin III last week.

However, they held the Knights – who were aiming for their fourth straight win - to a 6-6 deadlock at halftime and ran in three tries to one in the second stanza to record an emotional victory.

No one was more passionate than ex-Knight Corey Paterson, who capped his Cowboys debut with the match-sealing try in the 72^nd minute.

The second-rower was cut adrift midseason after it became clear incoming Knights coach Wayne Bennett was not interested in his services next season.

Paterson was forced to find a new club and the resurgent Cowboys, who remain in fourth place (26 points), came calling.

Cowboys skipper Mathew Bowen called on his team to continue producing without their Kangaroos and Queensland halfback.

“We spoke about it all week, Johno (Thurston) has gone missing and guys need to step up,” Bowen said.

“We have got to get past it, we have got five or six weeks while Johno’s out and it’s a time for guys to take their chance.”

A boilover looked likely when Joel Riethmuller touched down for 12-6 in the 52^nd minute after a dominant start to the second period.

Newcastle – who had looked sluggish to that point – tied the score at 12-12 when Kurt Gidley scored his second try in the 58^th minute, only for the Blues utility to leave the field with a suspected hamstring injury.

Fellow Blue Akuila Uate knocked on over the line four minutes later before the Cowboys reclaimed a two-point advantage through a Bowen penalty goal in the 66^th minute.

At this point a player of Dally M frontrunner Thurston’s class would have been the deciding factor for either team, but it was an unlucky bounce against Knights fullback Wes Naiqama that turned the match in the 69^th minute.

The Fijian was trying to field a kick from Mathew Bowen but the ball eluded him – Paterson won the race and fed James Segeyaro to increase the Cowboys lead to 18-12.

Bowen was told to fill Thurston’s shoes as playmaker and he came to the party in the fifth minute when Will Tupou gathered in his bomb for first blood.

Gidley hit back in the 13^th minute with a soft try off a scrum win after he effortlessly palmed off Michael Morgan to score.

Newcastle were lucky to receive the feed after Matt Hilder had the ball stripped 10m out from the tryline but nothing could explain the Cowboys’ soft defence.

Despite drawing first blood, North Queensland missed the Kangaroos’ half and struggled to get out of their own half throughout the first stanza.

Junior Sau nearly made them pay in the 22^nd minute, but Tupou and Bowen managed to hold him up over the tryline.

At the other end, Wes Naiqama produced a fantastic bit of balance to avoid conceding a line drop-out after he fumbled a Bowen kick – with the ball about to go dead, the Fijian threw it in the air, overbalanced behind the dead ball line before recovering in time to get back into play.

Mullen spoilt Naiqama’s good work by putting the next kick out on the full.

The error went unpunished, but Bowen produced a 40-20 in the 33^rd minute which had the visitors in promising position, but ended with a Tonga knock-on with the line begging.

Chris Houston did the same for the Knights four minutes later to cap a half of missed chances by both sides.

The Cowboys made less errors (seven) than their hosts (eight), but made 142 tackles to Newcastle’s 177. North Queensland missed 22 tackles to the Knights’ 11.