Supporting North Queensland: Round 4

SOMETIMES things happen, and all you can do is go "wow".

There was something in the air as the round 4 clash against the Cronulla Sharks loomed. For starters, I'd started the online sledging with a couple of Sharks' fans not long after they notched up their first win of the season last Sunday. Nice to see you guys beat Manly, but you're going to come up to our house, in our weather, and beat us? Ha!

Secondly there was the little matter of recruit Robert Lui pleading guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm. This was after an incident last year where Lui is said to have beaten his pregnant girlfriend after Mad Monday celebrations once his old club, the Wests Tigers, had been eliminated from the finals series.
Lui had already played in the first round loss to the Gold Coast, but had been out for the next two matches with injury - so what the Cowboys would do next interested me greatly. Beating up those weaker than you shows an inherent weakness in a person's character; having been the unfortunate witness to domestic violence throughout my life I have a zero tolerance for men who do this.
The Cowboys response was quick. In a statement on their website, Lui was suspended indefinitely by the club. He is undergoing regular counselling sessions, and it is hoped that being up in his hometown of Townsville will help settle him down. In an article on The Roar website that says why Lui should not be cut off from rugby league forever as some commentators have said, James Payten makes the point that:

"After he’s cut adrift from the Cowboys and the NRL for good, and sent back to whatever prospects he had before making it into the top grade, the chorus are then silent on their hopes for the success of his rehabilitation or for the positive growth of his relationship and family."

Given Lui can only play again once the ARL Commission is convinced that he has been fully rehabilitated, this would seem a fair course of action taken by the club. It doesn't mean that I'll be all the more comfortable if/when he comes back; rather, if this gives the man a chance to become a better person then that will ultimately determine its success or otherwise.

Finally Saturday night the game itself was somewhat overshadowed by the Queensland state election. Having splurged all my money on books, clothes and computer games earlier in the week, I decided to forgo the warming neon lights of the local to keep up with the game via the Cowboys Twitter feed while watching the state election results come in on the tv.

And play computer games and drink beer.

Who says men can't multi-task?

At first everything seemed to go to plan. The election results showed a swing to the Liberal-National Party (LNP), which had been widely expected. In the match the Cowboys skipped out to a 10-2 lead courtesy of tries to Gavin Cooper and Ashley Graham. On one tweet the Cowboys had just forced the Sharks into a second consecutive goal-line dropout, so things were looking pretty good.

Then the unbelievable.

On the tv, seat after seat after seat fell to the LNP. At one point I looked up from the computer to find the LNP had something like 45 seats (out of 89) with the Australian Labor Party (ALP) only having 2. Likewise, Cronulla did a job on us, with two tries in the last three minutes of the first half giving them a 14-10 lead.

Matt Bowen helped bring things back to 14-all with a try early in the second half, before Cronulla captain Paul Gallen wrapped things up for the bad guys with a 72nd-minute try. As shocking as that was (remind me never to get over-confident before a Cowboys game again), the election result was something else. At the time of writing the LNP has a guaranteed 74 seats in a 89-seat Parliament, while the ALP only has 7. Six, if you count the fact that former Premier Anna Bligh resigned the day after she'd bested most of her colleagues and actually won her own electorate.

Sometimes things happen, and all you can do is go "wow". Saturday night proved that.

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 14 (Cooper, Graham, Bowen tries, Thurston 1/3 goals) Cronulla Sharks 20

Supporting North Queensland: Round 3

THEY grow a lot of bananas up north. You can't really see them from the road as much as the sugar cane, but rest assured the region has a lot of bananas.
Unfortunately with bananas you get a lot of banana skins - like the match against Parramatta. The Cowboys 1-1 after that last-gasp win against the Broncos, playing at home against a side chock full of talent but yet to win after their first two games. This is exactly the kind of game that Cowboys sides of yore would have slipped up on; if we are going to be genuine finals contenders this year (and there's absolutely no reason why we can't be) this is exactly the kind of banana skin we can't afford to slip up on.

I needn't have worried.

Surfacing after a late-afternoon nap and shower I logged on to find the Cowboys up by 6 after a try to captain Matthew Scott, followed soon afterwards by and Ashley Graham 4-pointer to give us a 10-0 lead. It's at this point that the limitations of following a game over the internet become apparent: you get to watch a whole bunch of lines and dots give you only a very basic idea of what's happening on the ground. At one point the Parramatta lines got close to the tryline; a minute later and the Cowboys down the other end of the field.
Come to think of it, the Cowboys were down towards the tryline more often than not. Jason Taumalolo scored himself then set Graham up for his second; soon afterwards a mate posted on Facebook that the Cowboys had found a new superstar.
By the time I was ready to head to the pub for a friend's 30th it was half-time, the Cowboys were leading 26-0 and any thoughts of banana skins were banished to the brain cells that would inevitably die as a result of celebrating a touch too hard.
I arrived at the pub in time to watch most of the second half, although there wasn't much need to keep a close eye on proceedings. Parramatta managed to get one back to open the second half's scoring, before three late tries took us to a 42-6 win and a nice platform to launch into the evening's festivities.

No banana skins here.

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 42 (Graham 3, Scott, Taumalolo, Bowen, Linnett, Cooper tries; Jonathan Thurston 5/8 goals) - Parramatta Eels 6

Supporting North Queensland: Round 2

ONCE upon a time, in a land far, far away, the North Queensland Cowboys made a grand final.

It's not actually a fairytale. It did happen.

Honestly.

Go look it up. I'll still be here.

Done now? Good.

Smartarse.

Anyhow, the Cowboys took an early lead against the Wests Tigers and were looking comfortable when a guy by the name of Paul Bowman had a brain fart. Worried about getting caught in-goal after a Tigers' kick, Bowman passed the ball to pretty much no one, allowing the Tigers to score a try before going on to w... wi... not lose.
What made this all the more painful was that Bowman was a Cowboys' original. He'd played his first game back in 1995, played every season where not collecting the wooden spoon was an achievement, and now, playing in a grand final, he did that.
It just wasn't fair.

Last night it happened again.

Up 16-8 against the Brisbane Broncos - in Brisbane - Matt Bowen was coming back from a kick return when he dropped the ball. The Broncos scored, and all of a sudden it was deja vu all over again. Bowen, a thoroughly likeable lad from the community of Hope Vale in the far north, was supposed to be celebrating his 30th birthday when that happened.
Of all the games to do it in! The Broncos have pretty much always been the dominant Queensland team - it wasn't until the semi-final in 2004 that we finally beat them. There have been a few wins since, but with a 5-24-2 head-to-head record against your fiercest rivals, you want that win so very badly. For one of your club legends - celebrating a personal milestone - to do something so bad in such a big game was like a dagger to the heart/pain in my inbox. Not only that, but my brother was at the game with his fiancee and baby son: we needed the win to lock Lachie in as a little Cowboy!

The game itself was a massive improvement on last week. For one, we scored points! The defense wasn't quite where it needs to be to properly challenge for the premiership, but forays into Broncos territory were often rewarded. Bowen helped redeem himself with a nice little run to the tryline to put us back in front, but when the Broncos scored with 10 minutes to go you felt that was game over. Nice one guys, improvement on last week, but no cigar. Broncos up by 4.

Then the Broncos knock on with two minutes to go. Cowboys scrum, 27m out. Bowen takes the ball out, throws a dummy...

..and he's through! HE'S THROUGH! Try under the posts, Thurston converts, Cowboys win, Bowen celebrates his 30th in style, I'm yelling, screaming and can't stop grinning.

Sometimes fairytales do come true.

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 28 (Bowen 2, Johnson, Segeyaro, Tate tries, Thurston 4/5 goals) - Brisbane Broncos 26

Supporting North Queensland: Round 1

I BLAME the army.
There is absolutely no reason why I should support the North Queensland Cowboys.
None whatsoever.
Growing up I can't remember even watching a single game of rugby league on the tv. With a Victorian-raised father it was always the Aussie rules dominating our weekend viewing; I knew only of games with four posts, handballs and points for just missing.
In fact, the first game of rugby league I can remember watching was the 1988 grand final between Canterbury Bulldogs and Balmain Tigers. Everyone in the room bar one bloke was supporting the Bulldogs, so I decided to be different and cheer on the Tigers, who promptly lost 24-12.
The next game I watched was between the Tigers and the Canberra Raiders. Supporting the Tigers was obviously a no-go given their 0-1 record when I supported them, and besides, I'd actually lived in Canberra and knew where it was. Although down 12-2 at halftime, the Raiders made a stunning comeback, first scoring in the last 90 seconds to level the scores before scoring a field goal and try in extra time to win their first premiership.

So at 9 years old I'd been introduced to rugby league, watched what many considered one of the greatest grand finals of all time, and picked a team that represented somewhere I'd actually lived before. They might not have been a Queensland-based team, but that didn't mean there weren't some quality Maroons there: Mal Meninga, Gary Belcher, Steve Walters, Steve Jackson off the bench... Yep, the Raiders were my team. Couldn't get enough of anything lime green.

Then the Cowboys came in.
Now our family has no real link to the city of Townsville other than the fact the army posted Dad there between 1980 and 1983. It just so happens that that time period included SAJ & MWJ both making our world debuts, giving us a link to Townsville now recorded faithfully on our passports. Since leaving in 1983 I've been back twice: once in 2004 and once again last year.

That's it.

For a nomadic 14-year-old born in Townsville and who hated all things Broncos, this was a god-send. I could support a Queensland-based team, from where I was born, that apparently produced lots of good players. Success couldn't be that far away?

1995: Last. 1996: 17th (out of 20). 1997: Last. 1998: 16th (out of 20). 1999: 16th (out of 17). 2000: Last. 2001: 13th (out of 14).

This is way too depressing to continue.

It wasn't until 2004 we finally started to come good. The round 24 match against the Wests Tigers was our first match on free-to-air television since, oh, our very first match ever back in 1995! A couple of weeks later we were back on Channel 9 for our maiden finals game, taking on the second-placed Bulldogs. By this point I was living in Cooma NSW, a place about as far removed from Townsville in terms of weather and lifestyle as you could get. There was only one other Cowboys fan in the whole town - thankfully he lived in the upstairs flat - and together we cheered on the team as they shocked both the Bulldogs and Brisbane (yes, yes, sweet lordy yes!) to come within a whisker of making the grand final.
2005 was even better: a grand final loss, sure, but WE MADE THE GRAND FINAL! With players like Jonathan Thurston and Matty Bowen leading the attack, surely the bad old days were over?

2006: 9th (out of 15). 2007: 3rd (out of 16). 2008: 15th (out of 16, including a 13-game losing streak). 2009: 12th (out of 16). 2010: 15th (out of 16; not 16th only because Melbourne weren't allowed any points).

Oh for f%#s sake.

Last season was good though. Last season we made the finals for only the fourth time ever, losing to eventual premiers Manly. This is good.

So this season I've decided to write about the season from a Cowboys fan's perspective. I'm under no illusions: where some fans expect their team to win, we more sit in hope. I can't always catch the games either given I don't have pay tv at home. The interweb is a wonderful thing though, so where possible I'll take a peek at the highlights and blog about it afterwards.

But not for last night's game. Kept scoreless by last year's wooden spooners at home.

Seriously, I blame the army.

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 0 - Gold Coast Titans 18