Cowboys 34
Warriors 12
The New Zealand Warriors were made to pay for an error-ridden game of rugby league when they were thrashed 34-12 by the North Queensland Cowboys this afternoon.
The Warriors made nine errors in the first half, helping the Cowboys race to a 10-2 halftime lead, and then let the Cowboys score 18 points in the last 10 minutes after getting to within four of the visitors midway through the second half.
It was a comfortable victory built on a solid forward effort and a wealth of possession which gave Cowboys playmaker Johnathan Thurston plenty of time and space to challenge the Warriors defence.
"It was way down on anything we've delivered this year. It was our worst performance," Warriors coach Ivan Cleary said.
"Everyone's got to have a pretty good look in the mirror."
The Warriors struck first blood with a Denan Kemp penalty and Kemp went close to scoring in the corner afterwards, but after 11 minutes the Cowboys had the lead.
A simple error by Simon Mannering gave the visitors the ball 20m from the line, and shortly afterwards Luke O'Donnell scored after Thurston put him into a gap.
The Cowboys continued to dominate possession for the rest of the half, forcing the Warriors to make nearly twice as many tackles, and it was no surprise they scored again in the 29th minute, Thurston sidestepping his way to score near the posts.
Shortly after halftime the Cowboys nearly raced to a 14-point lead after Anthony Watts was held up over the line.
It seemed to spark the Warriors and a mistake by wing Ben Farrar in touching the ball as it went out near his line gave the home team a chance, and from the resulting scrum Nathan Fien went over near the posts.
Five minutes later, however, the visitors were back out to an eight-point lead after Willie Tonga pounced on a Thurston grubber kick to score under the posts.
The Warriors were given a big chance with 17 mintues gone in the second half when James Tamou was sinbinned for laying on Lance Hohaia as he tried to play the ball near the Cowboys line.
A few minutes later, they made use of their extra man by putting Kemp over in the right corner.
They had chances on several occasions in the next 15 minutes as driving rain made ball control tough for the 12-man Cowboys, Stacey Jones at one point being cut down by a Matt Bowen tackle after a line break, but they could not make the most of their chances.
The failure to convert opportunities came back to haunt the Warriors as the Cowboys scored three times in the last 10 minutes, the second of them one of the tries of the season to Ben Farrar.
Cowboys coach Neil Henry was delighted with his team's performance.
"It was our best win of the year, I would say, given that we had one man in the bin and they had all the running there for a bit," he said.
"It was only the last 10 minutes of the game that we were able to consolidate on the four-point lead."
Warriors captain Steve Price said everybody in his team needed to look at the way they played.
"We just didn't give ourselves a chance. I'm sure the Cowboys would have been pretty happy with the way we played."
- NZPA
