Cagey captain helps Cowboys rope fourth straight win

Yahoo

26-04-2025

Tom Dearden delivered a "captain's knock" to steer North Queensland to a thumping 50-18 victory over Gold Coast, with the Cowboys collecting their fourth successive win.
On the back of a second-half blow-out, conceding 44 unanswered points, the result consigned the Titans to their fourth straight loss to continue their slide down the NRL ladder.
The Saturday-night match was played at pace, with 12 tries scored and three players sin-binned.
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Playmaker Dearden gave Queensland State of Origin coach Billy Slater a timely reminder, finishing with four try assists and five line-break assists.
Exciting young winger Robert Derby bagged his first NRL hat-trick, including a penalty try in the last play of the game, while resurgent second-rower Jeremiah Nanai collected a double among the nine-try haul.
North Queensland coach Todd Payten lauded the leadership skills of his young captain Dearden, who missed training through the week due to illness.
"I thought it was a real captain's knock," Payten said after the match.
"What I liked was if I sent out a message after a try, whether it was us or them scoring, the feedback that I was getting was that he was already telling the players the message before the runner got out there.
"So yeah, I'm glad he's ours."
North Queensland opened the scoring in the seventh minute after Dearden off-loaded to halfback Jake Clifford, but they soon found themselves trailing 16-6, with Gold Coast piling on three tries in six minutes.
Jojo Fifita was first across, followed by his centre partner Brian Kelly, with Beau Fermor bagging the third, although the crowd at Queensland Country Bank Stadium were outraged by a blatant forward pass to the second-rower.
The home side then suffered another blow, losing Clifford to the sin bin at the 30-minute mark for a professional foul.
However, the Cowboys rallied and Nanai, again set up by five-eighth Dearden, crossed for a halftime score of 12-18.
With less than a minute remaining in the half, the Titans also went a man down, with Jaimin Jolliffe sent to the bin as part of the crackdown on high tackles.
The second half was all North Queensland as they piled on seven tries for 38 unanswered points.
Gold Coast weren't helped by another sin bin, with Brock Gray also pinged for a high shot, which Titans coach Des Hasler said "spoilt the game".
"We didn't play well," Hasler said.
"As soon as a tiny bit of adversity goes against us we sort of fall to pieces.
"In the second half we played 20 minutes with 12 men, so it's always going to be tough, but it's something that we need to quickly address.
"We were well beaten, but the sin bins make it ... I think it's inconsistent and there's nothing we can do to control that.
"It spoils the game of footy."
The one-way traffic took away from the good efforts of Fermor, who was a first-half standout, and promising young fullback Jaylan De Groot, who pulled off a try-saving tackle on Jaxon Purdue.
Titans skipper Tino Fa'asuamaleaui also dug deep.