Cowboys shine late in another one-point thriller

v BYE

While there was no golden point extra time, it still only took one point to separate the Cowboys and Broncos tonight at 1300Smiles Stadium in Townsville, where the premiers claimed the second Grand Final re-match 19-18 in front of 25,163 fans.

The Cowboys claimed first points through Matt Scott in the 11th minute when he hit a short ball close to the line from the little master JT. Rushing to an early 6-0 lead, the home team held court until the Broncos hit back in the 22nd minute when Matt Gillett crossed for the first of his two tries for the night. Jordan Kahu missed the conversion but slotted a penalty five minutes later to bring the scores to 6-all.

Gillett's second came eight minutes before the break, on the back of immense pressure from the competition leaders in attack, and they finally cracked the premiers' outstanding defence.

No more points were added after Kahu's conversion, with the Cowboys going into the sheds down by 6 points.

Jordan Kahu opened up the second stanza with a try in the 42nd minute, then after again missing a conversion, followed it up with a penalty goal in the 46th. Having not crossed the Broncos' line for 46 minutes, the Cowboys went in again through Lachlan Coote, converted by Thurston - narrowing the deficit to six once again as the match hit the hour mark. A few minutes later Justin O'Neill went in to score out wide, JT's conversion levelling the scores at 18-18.

Lots of scrappy but entertaining football followed for ten minutes until Thurston slotted what would be the winning field goal in the 74th to make the score 19-18 in the hosts' favour.

With field goal attempts by both Anthony Milford and Ben Hunt being terribly unsuccessful in the dying minutes, the Cowboys dragged the game out until the buzzer sounded, exacting revenge on their Queensland cousins after the first re-match back in Round 4.

Next week both sides will be without a glut of Origin stars - the Broncos host the Wests Tigers at Suncorp on Friday night, while the Cowboys are in Wollongong to face St George Illawarra 24 hours later.