- Steve Mascord's Stupid Saturday blog
- Jason Taylor says Wests Tigers can't rely on playing like it's 2005
A 77th minute try by North Queensland winger Antonio Winterstein saved the Wests Tigers and Cowboys clash at Campbelltown Stadium the embarrassment of being the lowest scoring match in 33 years.
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Mistakes cost West Tigers
West Tigers bomb a possible game winning try off a Mitchell Moses chip and chase.
North Queensland secured a club record eighth consecutive win with the 8-0 victory but it will be the only thing the match will be remembered for as both sides turned in mistaken ridden performances and offered little in attack.
Until Winterstein's try, the match was destined to be the lowest scoring premiership match since 1982 when Newtown drew Canterbury 0-0.
Queensland also beat NSW 2-0 in a State of Origin match at Allianz Stadium in 1995.
With captain Robbie Farah on Origin duty, this game was a chance for Wests Tigers young guns Luke Brooks and Mitchell Moses to call the shots but the pair failed to make any real impact in a disappointing night for the duo touted by some as the future NSW halves pairing.
Moses did provide a glimpse of his blistering speed when he chip kicked 35 metres out from the Cowboys line and then toed ahead only for winger Kevin Naiqama to knock on as he attempted to pick up the ball and score.
That passage of play in the 53rd minute was the closest any team had come to scoring a try in a match that gave critics of NRL scheduling some strong ammunition to call for stand alone State of Origin matches.
For the next nine weeks, the biggest rival to clubs for players, fans, sponsors and media coverage is the Origin series and if the standard of football served up so far this weekend is anything to go by there can only ever be one winner.Â
In fact, the highlight of the night was arguably the spectacular halftime fireworks show to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Wests Tigers grand final win over North Queensland in 2005, which was long enough to rival the New Year's Eve on Sydney Harbour.
It is hard to know whether the absence of Farah, Blues prop Aaron Woods, Cowboys superstar Johnathan Thurston, utility Michael Morgan and frontrow pair of Matt Scott and James Tamou had any impact on the poor crowd of 8,267 or if a deeper problem is responsible.
However, if Thurston had been playing it is unlikely that North Queensland would have opted to go for a penalty goal in the 29th minute as they did when secondrower Ethan Lowes stepped up to take the two points.
A 2-0 lead at halftime hardly seemed like it would be enough to win an NRL game but It was to be the only points of the first half and, as it turned out, the only points for 77 minutes of what almost became an historic match for all the wrong reasons.
Compounding the Tigers woes, centre Tim Simona aggravated an ankle injury and failed to return after halftime.
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