Johnathan Thurston insists all is not lost for North Queensland following their disastrous 27-10 NRL defeat at home to Canterbury.
After five consecutive losses, the Cowboys stand second-bottom of the ladder at 1-5 and would become the first NRL team to reach the grand final from this position.
The contest was effectively over at halftime on Saturday night, with the visitors 19-0 ahead in Townsville after tries from Marcelo Montoya and Raymond Faitala-Mariner.
Thurston, who was once more a long way short of his best, believes his team can still turn things around in the last season of his storied career.
“There’s a lot to work on but it’s not the end of the world,” Thurston said.
“It’s a big challenge but I’ve got full confidence in the playing group and the coaching group that we can turn things around.”
Adding insult to injury, the first try came after a kick from Kieran Foran deflected off the head of the Cowboys captain.
The diverted ball then found its way to the jumping Josh Jackson, who fed Will Hopoate and his lightning hands set up Montoya to touch down in the corner.
The only time the Cowboys looked like getting into the game came near the end of the half, with Canterbury’s Asipeli Fine in the sin bin, when at 12-0 down, Jason Taumalolo lost control just as he was stretching over the line.
Soon afterwards at the other end of the field, Greg Eastwood delayed his pass before freeing Faitala-Mariner to score.
Adam Elliott powered over to extend the lead in the second term and the Cowboys didn’t look like scoring until just after the hour mark when Brett Morris lost his footing allowing Michael Morgan to gift Kyle Feldt a try in the corner.
Ben Hampton scored a try with the last play of the game to flatter the home side, who have now been leapfrogged by the Bulldogs.
The coach of the pre-season favourites, Paul Green, is adamant the Cowboys will overcome the bad start to the campaign.
“We’ve been through some dry gullies before and we’ll fight our way out,” Green said.
Bulldogs coach Dean Pay pointed to the efforts of forwards Aaron Woods, David Klemmer and Elliott as key to the victory after they dominated their Cowboys counterparts.
“Those three boys in particular were really good. They were really strong,” Pay said.
“We completed (our sets) really high, which gives us a great opportunity.”
Pay said he could see the performance coming and challenged his team to make sure it wasn’t a one-off.
“We’ve been coping a bit of criticism by the way we’re playing but certainly internally we were just waiting for things to click for ourselves and it did tonight,” Pay said.