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2015 NRL grand final: North Queensland Cowboys win by a point

The Cowboys will have to do it without Thurston in 2017. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Expert
4th October, 2015
5

You would be hard pressed to find a more incredible or action packed NRL grand final, as the North Queensland Cowboys took out their first premiership at ANZ Stadium, beating the Brisbane Broncos by a single digit in golden point.

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In front of 82,758 fans the game see-sawed back and forth and looked dead and buried with a just a few minutes to play. Both teams were out on their feet and neither looked like scoring more points.

However, the Cowboys did enough to score, forcing it to golden point and then nailing the field goal that would win them the 2015 NRL premiership.

After a fantastic game though, Ben Hunt had some of the worst minutes of his career, getting placed on report for a spear tackle and then dropping the ball from the kick-off.

Apart from those five minutes however, Hunt played an incredibly controlling role in the game and was one of the Broncos’ best, keeping them cool and composed under pressure and certainly guiding them to a lead that for a long time was looking like it might have been enough.

The other standout from the Broncos was Anthony Milford. He looked odds on favourite for the Clive Churchill medal for much of the game, providing spark in attack and making some pivotal plays in defence, including two one-on-one strips.

Andrew McCullogh, Corey Parker, Adam Blair and particularly Jack Reed also had standout games. To list so many players from a losing side shows just how high paced, and how high quality the game was.

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For the Cowboys, Johnathan Thurston managed to take out the Clive Churchill medal as the best player on the ground, however that could be disputed. Jake Granville, Lachlan Coote and Michael Morgan also had sparkling games while Jason Taumalolo, James Tamou and Matt Scott led the forwards with vigour on both ends of the park.

The scoring started early on in the piece, the Broncos coming out of the blocks firing. Corey Parker slotted a penalty goal to hand Brisbane the lead in the seventh minute.

Off the kick-off, with the Broncos under all sorts of pressure and only just getting back into the field of play, Adam Blair took a charge before offloading to Milford. He found space and passed to Jack Reed, who then put Corey Oates into space to run almost the length of the field to score.

Just a couple of minutes later though, the Broncos made a mistake as Matt Gillett dropped the ball. From the scrum, Granville dummied, stepped and made his way through the line before passing to Justin O’Neill who crashed over.

The Cowboys then dominated for a period of the game and scored the next try to take the lead for the first time. They got right onto the line of the Broncos and Tamou scored next to the posts.

The Broncos would come back and score the next try, however, just six minutes out from half-time to take the lead into the break through Jack Reed.

The half-time score of 14-12 would prove to be close to the score for the next half hour, with the exception of a penalty goal.

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End-to-end play ensued in the second half, however for a long time it seemed the teams were trying to save energy and the extreme pace we saw in the first half had certainly gone out of the game.

With around 20 minutes to go, the Broncos managed to strike a penalty goal and go four points ahead.

The Cowboys tried everything during the last 20 minutes. They attacked from every angle possible and tried every play they had ever learnt, however nothing was able to crack the Brisbane defence.

Eventually, with just two minutes on the clock and the Broncos doing nothing more than one up hit-ups and kicking it over the sideline, slowing down play and conserving energy, the Cowboys had one final crack following a Hunt spear tackle and Broncos error.

Thirty metres out, on the last play of the game, Thurston got the ball and almost looked to be tackled on three separate occasions before getting a pass away to Michael Morgan in the middle of the field. Morgan took off, running for the right side and getting an arm free in a three-man tackle, passing to Kyle Feldt who was able to score in the corner after the siren.

Thurston then had the opportunity to win the game for the Cowboys hit the post with his attempted conversion.

The extra time that ensued was short, but full of action.

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The Cowboys kicked off and Hunt spilled the ball. The Cowboys had a shot at the field goal off the scrum but were rushed, and were rushed again later in the set.

Eventually, with a play still up their sleeve they went out the back to Thurston again and he would hit the field goal from about 20 metres to sink the Broncos and win the premiership for the Cowboys.

All in all, an incredible game of rugby league and the party will go on in North Queensland for a long, long time.

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