As the North Queensland Cowboys get set to face the Canterbury Bulldogs in Townsville tonight, let’s take a look back at the last two decades and see how the Cowboys have risen from perennial strugglers to the club they are today.
The Cowboys were one of four clubs (along with the Auckland Warriors, South Queensland Crushers and Western Reds) to be admitted to the competition ahead of the 1995 ARL season.
Of those four, only the Cowboys and the Warriors (who were rebranded as the New Zealand Warriors in 2001) have survived to the present day.
North Queensland entered at a time in the game when the Brisbane Broncos, the only other Queensland side in the ARL competition at the time, were starting to become a dominant force. By this stage the Broncos had already won two premierships, both at the expense of the St George Dragons.
Thus, gaining supporters across Queensland was one of the challenges the Cowboys faced in their first few seasons, in addition to struggling for on-field results and big-name players. Then in 2005, a rookie called Johnathan Thurston came on board and helped shape them into the club they are today.
More on that shortly, but tonight’s clash against the Bulldogs will mark 20 years since the Cowboys entered the competition, and it was against the eventual premiers for that season whom the club would play its first ever game.
In a spiteful match played at Stockland Stadium (now 1300SMILES Stadium, which remains the Cowboys’ home ground to the present day), Adrian Vowles (Cowboys) and Jason Smith (Bulldogs) were both sent off for high tackles as the Sydney Bulldogs (as they were known at the time) won 32-16, spoiling the party for the North Queensland faithful.
The Cowboys would have to wait until Round 8 to win their first ever game, which came against Illawarra at WIN Stadium by a scoreline of 14-10. Their first home win came in Round 15, with a 31-12 victory over the Western Suburbs Magpies.
Those wound up being the club’s only two wins for the whole season, as the Cowboys became the first club since Canberra in 1982 to win the wooden spoon in their debut season.
In 1997, the club secured a huge coaching coup when they landed two-time Canberra Raiders premiership-winning mentor Tim Sheens. However, limited success and health issues were to plague his four-and-a-half years in Townsville, with two more wooden spoons coming in 1997 and 2000.
But during this period the club produced some of its greatest players, including Matt Bowen, Josh Hannay, Nathan Fien, and Paul Bowman.
The club’s fortunes started to turn for the better shortly after the turn of the millennium. Graham Murray, who’d taken the Sydney Roosters to the grand final in 2000, took over as coach partway through the 2002 season and from there results started to improve.
Ty Williams, Matt Sing, Paul Rauhihi, Travis Norton, Luke O’Donnell and Aaron Payne, who could so easily have played State of Origin for Queensland had it not been for a man called Cameron Smith, all turned out for the Cows.
Rauhihi and Norton arrived from the Bulldogs following the aftermath of that club’s salary cap scandal, which saw them stripped of 37 competition points and sentenced to the 2002 wooden spoon. Both came to the Cowboys 12 months apart; Rauhihi in 2003 and Norton in 2004. They would later be joined by yet another former Bulldog in Johnathan Thurston, for the 2005 season.
Following steady improvement in the years following Graham Murray’s arrival, the club finished seventh at the end of the 2004 regular season and thus qualified for the finals for the first time in their history.
Their finals debut saw them drawn against the Bulldogs, who had beaten them twice in the regular season: by 36-16 in Round 16 at Dairy Farmers Stadium and by 32-18 in Round 22 at Spotless Stadium.
But the Cowboys, led brilliantly by captain Norton and winger Matt Sing, who scored three tries, turned the finals series on its head and stunned the highly-fancied Bulldogs 30-22.
That set up a tantalising semi-final showdown against the Brisbane Broncos, which was originally meant to be played in Sydney but was moved to Townsville, such was the buzz that the Cowboys caused by their upset win over the Bulldogs.
Having never previously beaten their bigger brothers, coming closest via a draw on Anzac Day in 1999, the Cowboys made more history by claiming a 10-0 win and keeping the Broncos scoreless on Queensland soil for the first time in the process.
The match was made notable in that it was Broncos veteran Gorden Tallis’ final NRL game, fittingly played in his hometown of Townsville.
Their grand final dream was ended by the minor premiers, the Sydney Roosters, in the preliminary final a week later. But they didn’t go down without a fight, the final scoreline 19-16.
Their unexpected preliminary final appearance in 2004 set the precedent for more success at the club.
Ahead of the 2005 season, they secured the services of Johnathan Thurston, who had just featured in the Bulldogs’ 2004 premiership winning side as a bench player after replacing the injured Steve Price.
From there, the Cowboys took off. They continued to make inroads in 2005, finishing fifth at the end of the regular season and then reaching their first ever grand final at the expense of the Parramatta Eels.
They faced the Wests Tigers, who had thrashed the Cowboys 50-6 in the first qualifying final just three weeks earlier. Despite scoring the first try of the match through Matt Bowen, the Cowboys went down 30-16, their dreams of a maiden premiership dying in the face of a Tigers onslaught.
For Johnathan Thurston, whose first season at the Cowboys brought about the first of 30 consecutive (and counting) State of Origin matches for Queensland and the Dally M Medal, there would be no fairytale ending. He had been hoping to win his second consecutive premiership ring (but what he believed was his first).
This brought about high expectations in 2006, but after starting the season with six straight wins the Cowboys crashed to a ninth-placed finish at the end of it, with captain Travis Norton retiring without featuring in a premiership side.
After just two seasons in Townsville, Thurston inherited the captaincy in 2007 and led the Cowboys to third on the ladder at season’s end, their best ever placing at the end of a regular season.
Unfortunately, the club just missed out on another grand final berth, going down to the Manly Sea Eagles in the preliminary final when a win would have seen them face off against the Melbourne Storm.
The club fell to its lowest point since 2000 the following season, crashing to second-last on the ladder only ahead of the Bulldogs on percentage. Long-serving coach Graham Murray departed midway through the year when it was made clear his contract would not be renewed.
Former assistant coach and 2008 Dally M Coach of the Year Neil Henry returned to the club as head coach for the 2009 season, having spent his two seasons away from Townsville as coach of the Canberra Raiders.
Although 2009 was an improvement on the previous year, season 2010 saw the club win just five times, with the Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal saving them from the embarrassment of a fourth wooden spoon.
The 2011 season saw the club return to the finals after a three-year absence, nearly tripling their win tally from the previous season and finishing seventh before losing to eventual premiers Manly in the first round of the finals.
The Cowboys continued to reach the finals in the subsequent seasons but without finishing any higher than fifth, impeding their chances of winning a first premiership.
On either side of a controversial finals loss to Cronulla in 2013, the club finished fifth, and defeated the Brisbane Broncos in a home elimination final before bowing out to the Sea Eagles and Roosters in 2012 and 2014, respectively.
During 2013 Neil Henry was informeded that his services would no longer be required, in the midst of a disappointing season which was later salvaged by a late run that saw the club eventually finish eighth.
Paul Green took over as the club’s head coach prior to the 2014 season and instant success appeared to follow, with the Cowboys winning the inaugural Auckland Nines title, defeating the Brisbane Broncos in the final.
After starting the regular season slowly, the club steadied to a fifth-place finish before their September ended in a narrow 31-30 defeat to the Sydney Roosters in the second semi-final.
Another impressive season from captain Johnathan Thurston saw him tie with Jarryd Hayne for the Dally M Medal, marking the third time that he had claimed Australian rugby league’s highest individual honour.
With Thurston entering the twilight of his career, time is running out on the Cowboys to win their first premiership while he is still playing.
Which brings us to the Cowboys’ impending showdown against the Bulldogs, which as mentioned before marks 20 years since the Cowboys’ first professional game against the same club way back in 1995.
Again the club started the season slowly with three losses, but five straight wins, including one against reigning premiers South Sydney, have seen them rise to fourth on the ladder, but still with a negative points differential of -3.
The Cowboys will hope to celebrate their 20th anniversary by defeating the Bulldogs, a side they share a healthy rivalry against when you consider the significant matches that have taken place between the two sides and the players who have represented both sides in the NRL.
Johnathan Thurston remains the most notable player to have played for both the Bulldogs and Cowboys. Others to have represented both clubs include include Paul Rauhihi, Travis Norton, Jason Smith, Willie Tonga, Willie Mason and Ben Hannant.
Significant matches between the two clubs include the aforementioned 2004 qualifying final, the 2007 qualifying final played in Townsville and won by the Cowboys, and a match late in the 2008 season that the Bulldogs moved to Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, which decided that season’s wooden spoon.
Saturday night’s anniversary match between the Cowboys and Bulldogs promises to be another significant one in the rivalry between the two clubs. Can the Cowboys continue their recent winning form or will the Bulldogs, as they did on that March night 20 years ago, spoil the party for the northerners?
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