Raiders 20 Cowboys 21
Thurston's third drop goal attempt seals win
Jonathon Thurston seals the North Queensland Cowboys 21 - 20 win over the Canberra Raiders with the last of three drop goal attempts. All three shots were taken in the final 35 seconds of the match.
PT0M48S 620 349There's an old saying in sport — they don't draw diagrams in the scorebook.
The luckless Canberra Raiders understand that all too well after a last-second field goal from North Queensland maestro Johnathan Thurston broke their hearts in a 21-20 defeat at Canberra Stadium on Saturday.
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NRL: Raiders v Cowboys
The Canberra Raiders and North Queensland Cowboys clash in a close contest at GIO Stadium, Canberra. Photo: Jeffrey Chan
It's not the first time the Raiders have played well and with great spirit this year before leaving empty-handed.
The Cowboys hadn't won 10 straight games beforehand for no reason, and again they found a way to win when they fell behind late in the match.
Raiders back-rower Sia Soliola charged down Thurston's first two field goal attempts. But as he so often does, the halfback had the last laugh.
Thurston backed up despite copping a hammering in Queensland's Origin II loss on Sunday and North Queensland's Origin props Matt Scott and James Tamou were both superb.
"I've been really disappointed the way I've backed up after Origin the past couple of years," Thurston said.
"I wasn't happy with the way I backed up the last game [Origin I], too, I wanted to make sure I did my job out there today. I wanted to do my bit for the team."
He did more than that but other less-celebrated players stepped up for North Queensland. Hooker Jake Granville in particular was brilliant, including forcing a Shaun Fensom error which put his team in position to land the decisive one-pointer.
Canberra players slumped to the ground in despair after the match.
The Raiders made around 60 extra tackles in the first half and trailed just 8-6 at the break, their on-line defence markedly improved from previous weeks.
They led 12-8 when Blake Austin scored from a Jordan Rapana kick, but the Cowboys hit back through a try to Matthew Wright created from a Granville dummy-half burst.
Searching for just their second home win of the year, the Raiders refused to yield and took an 18-14 lead after an hour when Edrick Lee batted a kick back to fullback Jack Wighton.
With 13 minutes left the lead changed again when the Cowboys took advantage of a penalty, fullback Lachlan Coote hitting try-scoring back rower Gavin Cooper with a short ball close to the line.
With three minutes left Thurston was penalised for taking Rapana out attempting to catch a bomb, giving Raiders skipper Jarrod Croker a chance to level the scores with a penalty goal 10 metres in from touch.
He made no mistake to draw things level at 20-all with two minutes to go, but Thurston had the final say.
Raiders coach Ricky Stuart was despondent afterward. Canberra is now 6-8 but has lost a bunch of close games this season, and could be in a much better position.
Wighton was superb throughout, as was winger Jordan Rapana and revitalised prop David Shillington.
"I thought we played very tough," he said.
"You don't win 11 games in a row if you're not a good team, I think we're a better football team after that game than we were before it.
"I'm disappointed for the players because they're brokenhearted in there after the effort they put in. They won't understand that right at this moment, but we will get so much out of that."
Croker was proud of the desperation but the frustration the effort isn't translating to premiership points was evident.
"We talked about defending our errors and penalties and we did that the whole first half, pretty much," he said.
"The boys hung in, it's extremely disappointing, the boys are a bit upset but we'll move on."
NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 21 (Antonio Winterstein, Matthew Wright, Gavin Cooper tries; Johnathan Thurston 4 goals, field goal); bt CANBERRA RAIDERS 20 (Blake Austin, Jack Wighton, Edrick Lee tries; Jarrod Croker 4 goals) at Canberra Stadium on Saturday. Crowd: 10,170. Referees: Ashley Klein and Chris Sutton.
