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Cowboys' comeback win over Sea Eagles marred by pre-game injury to Reuben Cotter

By AAP
(Photo by Albert Perez/Getty Images)

Queensland coach Billy Slater will be on the hunt for a new lock for Origin II after Reuben Cotter withdrew from the North Queensland Cowboys’ miraculous 28-26 comeback win over Manly.

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Cotter, who made his Maroons debut with a sterling performance in Origin I, pulled up with a hamstring complaint in the warm-up and did not take the field.

The lock will go for scans in Sydney but coach Todd Payten said it was unlikely he would be boarding the plane to Perth for the second game of the Origin series.

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“It’s going to be a fair stretch for him to get going in 10 days,” Payten said.

“A kid of his size relies on his speed and power and that’s where it has hurt his hamstring.”

There was also concern for another Maroons hopeful in Cowboys winger Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, who had been vying with teammate Murray Taulagi to take Xavier Coates’ spot on the wing.

Tabuai-Fidow copped a lazy knee from Manly’s Morgan Harper as he gathered a loose ball and did not return to the field.

“It all happens really quickly, I’d have liked it to have been on report so we get a free interchange, but it wasn’t intentional,” Payten said.

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Cotter and Tabuai-Fidow missed out on one of the most famous wins in Cowboys’ history as they trailed 26-12 in front of 9662 expectant fans at Brookvale Oval with seven minutes to go..

The Cowboys flipped the script to bag three tries in as many minutes and secure a valuable victory.

Reece Robson grabbed their first with Connelly Lemuelu following him over the whitewash after an audacious Taulagi offload before Valentine Holmes sealed the winner with a breakaway try off the back of a Daly Cherry-Evans error.

The Cowboys had been slow out of the blocks without the talismanic Cotter, allowing Christian Tuipolotu and Harper to push the Sea Eagles out to a 10-0 lead after 24 minutes.

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Holmes and Jeremiah Nanai scored either side of the break before Tuipolotu responded and outjumped Taulagi to dot down.

Having lost Kieran Foran to a head injury assessment, Manly needed a moment of inspiration and it came in the shape of a 40/20 kick from workmanlike hooker Lachlan Croker.

He pounced on an in-goal grubberkick from Daly Cherry-Evans on the next set to push Manly ahead.

Croker dived on a second loose ball to score, which looked to have secured the Sea Eagles’ first win over a top-eight opponent this season.

But the chance to end that record, and secure their fifth straight win at Brookvale Oval fell to pieces, with the Cowboys adding their late treble of tries to seal victory.

“They just kept hanging in and they’ve got those individuals who can hurt you,” said Manly coach Des Hasler.

“I think we played with a really good temperament and I’ll make no excuses but we shouldn’t have lost that game.

“The players are very disappointed about it. We should have closed that game out.”

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Jon 8 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 11 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

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