North Queensland coach Neil Henry says the Cowboys need to take a leaf out of the Warriors’ book and get back to winning ways quickly.
The Warriors held out against the Cowboys for a 20-18 victory in a frantic contest in Auckland on Monday to record their first success of the season.
“It could be a turning point for them,” Henry said.
“We need to make sure we make next week into a bit of a turning point for us.”
Defeat for the Cowboys, who were one of the pre-season title favourites, was their third in a row.
They started their campaign with a win over the Bulldogs, but the next two rounds brought heavy defeats against Melbourne and Newcastle.
Their next assignment is against Penrith in Townsville.
“We go back home and we need to be desperate for a win on home turf,” Henry said.
“We have a short turn-around – get back and freshen up, probably one training run and into a game of footy.”
Henry said he had expected a physical battle against the Warriors, given their barren run, although he didn’t agree that they had been on an 11-match losing streak, as eight of those were last year.
He said the Warriors were also at their traditional home ground of Mt Smart Stadium for the first time this year.
“We were up against a side fairly desperate to get their season kick-started and they did.”
Henry pointed to the concession of a try just before halftime as a pivotal moment.
It meant the Cowboys went into the break up 12-6, rather than 12-0.
Then their execution in the second spell, when they committed nine errors, let them down.
“We had territorial advantage in the first half and I thought we were going okay,” he said.
“But in the end, they still came through us three times for tries and our completion rate in the second half wasn’t good enough.”
Henry said teams that won games usually completed their sets up to 80 per cent of the time, “and we can’t be 53 per cent in 40 minutes of footy.”
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