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At the midway point of the NRL season, the bottom-eight bound North Queensland Cowboys looked as likely to feature come September as I did to be dating Katy Perry.
The Cowboys are now three wins away from the grand final, and KP is two months from a tour of Australia. If you believe in miracles and fairytale finishes, it’s a good time to be alive.
In a year where I decided playing fantasy football for the first time would be more rewarding than a tipping comp (SPOILER: my Sky Valley Stoners performed like you’d expect a team bearing that moniker to), the only evidence of any pre-season predictions on my behalf comes via an obscure tweet just before 2014 kicked off.
@Choomby @bonec0ne @doncandon Cowboys/Roosters GF, Qld #9inarow, Raiders/Broncos/Dragons to completely demoralise their remaining fans.
— Kris Swales (@KrisSwales) March 4, 2014
Which means I’m striking them at around 50 per cent to date (c’mon Dragons fans, a broken hoodoo does not a good season make), and that first week of October tip is starting to take on the faintest whiff of credibility.
When it comes to the Cowboys, one of the predictions I got wrong is perhaps key to why things are going so right. Star five-eighth-come-halfback Johnathan Thurston was well off his rhythm when it counted in State of Origin 2014, but from Game 3 onwards has played like the guy who collected man-of-the-match honours four times at the World Cup in England late last year.
He’s hungry; scheming and probing; determined to carry his side to premiership glory on his back. Not that he has to. Unlike Jarryd Hayne at Parramatta, he’s not a lone juggernaut trying to drag a squad of players still soul-crushed by Ricky Stuart in his wake.
The late season hot streak has coincided with Jason Taumololo remembering he’s a ridiculously massive unit with agility and speed to burn, perhaps due to rookie coach Paul Green showing him footage of his colossal display in a courageous losing battle against Cronulla in last year’s finals, or perhaps even as a subconscious reaction to being traded out of my pathetic fantasy league squad.
Matt Scott has also been stampeding up the paddock in career-best form since Origin, while the loss of T-1000-esque Brent Tate has been tempered somewhat by the injection of Tautau Moga’s pace since moving north from Roosters territory.
This Cowboys squad also plays with the same relentless intensity no matter who they’re throwing shade across the halfway line at. The 64-6 humiliation of the Wests Tigers in Round 22 may have been the rock-bottom moment Robbie Farah and his mate Mick Potter had to have, but the Cowboys’ attack would have sliced up any team in the comp that night.
They’ve since steamrolled competition frontrunners South Sydney and Manly, fallen over the line against the Sharks, and lost by one to a Penrith team who just won’t stop winning games no one expects them to.
These are exciting times in Townsville – the most exciting since the dream run of 2005. There are platforms being laid, nice blends of youth and experience, and plenty of full credit no doubt being given to the boys.
There’s also a space on JT’s mantle where the NRL premiership ring he generously dished off to injured Bulldogs skipper Steve Price in 2004 could be. And if he doesn’t collect one in 2014, chances are Mitchell Pearce will be collecting his second.
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