The North Queensland Cowboys have slaughtered the Brisbane Broncos 38-12 in the QLD Derby at Suncorp Stadium with their young core of superstars leading the way.
North Queensland got the scoring underway through a Valentine Holmes penalty goal, after Jake Turpin was pinned for high contact on Tom Gilbert. From there, the onslaught began. Chad Townsend put in a great grubbing kick and Jeremiah Nanai collected his reward after setting up the repeat set following his great efforts and urgency in defence.
The Cowboys thought they were in moments later, but the Broncos' goal-post padding (not for the first time involving the Cowboys) got in the road. From there, Chad Townsend threw an intercept straight to Corey Oates and gave up the attacking opportunity.
Brisbane worked their way into the match and were rewarded with a controversial penalty try to Herbie Farnworth. The bunker ruled Albert Kelly had placed Kurt Capewell (who was in an offside position) back onside and allowed play to proceed. Farnworth was then taken off the ball by Kyle Feldt with the bunker ruling in favour of the Broncos centre. With the conversion, Brisbane was back in the contest.
Jason Taumalolo got his side into the sheds in the best way possible throwing a brilliant ball to young forward Griffin Neame and the youngster ran his line perfectly and with Holmes' conversion, North Queensland went into the sheds with a well deserved 14-6 lead at half-time.
Straight after the break, Adam Reynolds mistimed his kick and sent it out on the full giving the visitors prime field position, and following another Reynolds kick missing its target, North Queensland made them pay with smooth hands from Reece Robson and Tom Dearden finding Valentine Holmes to go over for a well-deserved four-pointer. With a handy sideline conversion from the man himself, the Cowboys extended their advantage to go out by three scores.
The historians were heading for the record books when Jeremiah Nanai plucked a Tom Dearden bomb out of the air and went over his second try to place the Cowboys even further in front. Selwyn Cobbo was having a nightmare being dragged back into the in-goal area on numerous occasions setting the Broncos up for wave after wave of Cowboys onslaught.
The visitors went back to their formula and Tom Dearden looked for his target in Jeremiah Nanai who plucked the footy from Tesi Niu's grasp and the young backrower had his first hat-trick in the NRL. Brisbane was surrendering when Tom Dearden strolled over out of acting half to put the Cowboys up by 38-6.
Brisbane managed a late try when Adam Reynolds' chip took an awful bounce for the Hammer and Herbie Farnworth scored his second try of the contest.
Next week the Broncos take on the Warriors at Redcliffe, while North Queensland return home for a crunch match against competition heavyweights, the Sydney Roosters.