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SYDNEY - Titans league player Mat Rogers and the North Queensland Cowboys' psychologist will be partly to blame if Johnathan Thurston terrorises the New Zealand Warriors again on Saturday.
Thurston looms again as the major threat for the Warriors in Townsville as both sides chase a third consecutive National Rugby League (NRL) victory.
After a horror start to 2008 when the Cowboys lost their first three matches and Thurston struggled for confidence, normal transmission resumed with back-to-back wins over Parramatta and St George-Illawarra.
Having returned from major off-season shoulder surgery, the brilliant Kangaroos No 7 credited the Cowboys' psychologist and some criticism of his defence by Rogers.
"I had doubts whether I was coming back too early or whether my shoulders could handle it," he told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.
"I spoke to a sports psychologist for a while and I suppose that gets the demons out of your head."
Rogers' early season reference to Thurston as a "speed hump" in defence also hit the mark.
Said Thurston: "I don't know Matt that well, but I'd say hello again and that. Maybe not again, it sort of felt like a personal attack.
"I've never done anything wrong by him. If anything, he ended up looking a bit like a dickhead."
With Thurston's and his teammates' confidence restored, they're looking to maintain the Warriors' winless streak at Townsville which stretches back to 2002.
Last year they won the regular season match 18-12 at Dairy Farmers Stadium before they ended the Warriors' season with a 49-12 hiding in the playoffs, with Thurston and fullback Matt Bowen in stunning form.
Bowen wasn't named in an unchanged Cowboys 17, but a team spokesman said coach Graham Murray had left the door open for the fullback to return from a knee injury on Saturday if he negotiated training safely this week.
Kiwis hooker David Faiumu remains in feeder team the Mackay Cutters in the Queensland Cup while compatriot Sione Faumuina is out for six weeks after a hernia operation.
Cowboys prop Dane Weston was quick to put the heat on the Warriors' much-vaunted pack who again have to survive without injured captain Steve Price.
"A lot of people say they are an intimidating pack but they are just as tough as any other forward pack in the competition," he told the Townsville Bulletin.
"I played against the Warriors a couple of times with the Sharks and they are tough but they are big also which is to our (the Cowboys') advantage.
"If we can use footwork and work them over a bit it is probably going to work in our favour."
Giant Warriors winger Manu Vatuvei is a key focus for the Cowboys after another two-try demolition to help sink the Bulldogs.
Former Sydney Rooster John Williams is tasked with marking Vatuvei who's the NRL's equal leading try scorer with six.
"I have no doubt (that they will clash individually), but it's also about a team atmosphere and he'll handle it all right," Murray said of the 95kg Williams.
"It's not often that you come one-on-one so it's a matter of everyone having a bit of input there.
"(Vatuvei's) a big man and when he gets moving he's pretty hard to stop, but he's also pretty good in the air when he's chasing an attacking kick."
- NZPA
