Welcome to Bovine Bulletin, a monthly newsletter about the North Queensland Cowboys.
Programming note: the weekly newsletter will be delayed to either Thursday or Friday, so I can appropriately capture the vibe of the Origin result (unbridled smugness without an ounce of self-awareness, or unbridled smugness that I was right).
With the men's season close to a formality at this stage, we turn our attention to the women's campaign because it is neither a disaster yet nor has it completely destroyed my self-esteem as someone who writes about rugby league part time.
You could hardly have asked for a better start than the Cowboys’ efforts against the Titans in Townsville on Saturday. A score of 20-6 seems less reflective of the domination delivered than North Queensland’s lower than average completion rate. Despite that and an equal share of the ball, the Cowboys ran for a manly-looking 1778 metres (that would be over 2000 metres in a 80 minute game) to the Titans’ 1470. That’s a 300 metre victory and not far off what the Roosters had over the Warriors en route to a win with ten more points in the margin.
While it seems extremely unlikely that they will be quite given the same runway to do as they will on the field, I was extremely impressed by this performance. As a person who has liked the Cowboys’ women’s team from the get-go, this felt like two years of hard work for them, and take-having for me, finally paying off.
I had reservations about the backline shuffling, moving Goldthorp to wing and Whitfeld to fullback, but damned if that combination didn’t work well. Krystal Blackwell also looked great on the other wing. Rosie Kelly can ball, it turns out, despite some early handling errors, so I may have to walk back prior critiques that were couched in union players having no idea about league. Manzelmann and Dibb need no further praise.
Most of all, the pack and the bench were astonishingly good. Weale, Yarrow, Peacock, Chester, Banu, Ormond-Maunsell didn’t take a backwards step and kicked in the door. Gold Coast looked off the pace all day and struggled to contain the Cowboys.
Future games won’t play out quite so easily for North Queensland. The halftime lead of 14-0, even that didn’t account for a few butchered opportunities, was met with a 6-6 second half, even if the Titans’ contribution came in garbage time. But the building blocks, of which all were on display in this game, will serve them well through the season to come.
Thank you for reading Bovine Bulletin
If this your first time, you might like to subscribe to get future free versions of these newsletters below.
If you enjoyed it, consider sharing with the people you think it might interest.
If you really enjoyed it, considering upgrading to a paid subscription to access what's beyond this paywall.
After the paywall, we're spending more time talking women’s footy and less time talking men’s footy, so we’re rewinding all the way back to 2023.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Maroon Observer to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.