North Queensland defeated St George Illawarra 18-12 in their NRL trial match in Perth with the Cowboys stunning the Dragons by scoring four tries in the opening 20 minutes on Saturday night.
A crowd of 8,588 at nib Stadium witnessed a scintillating opening from Neil Henry’s team who put on an attacking clinic in the first quarter of the game with winger Antonio Winterstein crashing over in the corner after a couple of minutes.
Gavin Cooper scored a second for the Cowboys soon after before Sydney Roosters recruit Kane Linnett crossed the line for North Queensland’s third try when the Dragons defence failed to trap a grubbered ball into the in-goal.
Ashley Graham then scored for the Cowboys to leave the Dragons reeling at 18-0.
The teams took a break at the quarter-time mark due to the warm Perth weather and it seemed to steady the Dragons.
St George Illawarra managed to get on the board through a converted try to Brett Morris and the sides went into halftime at 18-6 and that’s how it remained until the Dragons managed a late converted try through Jacob Marketo.
Dragons coach Steve Price was reasonably happy with his first official trial match as senior coach despite a knee injury to Atela Vea and rib complaint to Dan Hunt.
“We did start off slow in that first 20-minute period, but as we warmed into the game I thought there was some really positive signs out of the group and I was really happy with the last 60 minutes,” Price said.
“It was our first trial and we had a lot of new combinations, and faces, and you expect that. There were some positive signs out there. Atela Vea hurt his knee and Dan Hunt went down with his ribs, but we will know further when we get back to Sydney and assess it with our club doctor and get some scans back home.”
Cowboys coach Henry was delighted with what he saw for their first trial match of the year.
“I thought it was a good hit out. I was pretty happy with our performance even though it got a bit scrappy in the second half. We started well and had a fair bit of ball in the first half and our completions were high with 18-of-20,” Henry said.
“It has been a good hit out for a large squad of 22. It’s the first hit out and the boys were itching for a game after training for a long time and we will take a fair bit out of that moving forward to next week’s game.”
The Cowboys play Gold Coast in a trial next week in Mackay with stars Johnathan Thurston and Matthew Bowen set to return.
While the Dragons now turn their attention to next Saturday night’s Charity Shield against South Sydney at ANZ Stadium.
