League: Golden point heartbreak

Cowboys 14 Raiders 15

Just three days after Queensland lost the State of Origin opener by one point, the same fate befell NRL leaders North Queensland last night.

A 15-14 golden point defeat against the Canberra Raiders knocked the Cowboys off the top of the table for the first time this season, with the chasing pack playing overnight.

Stand-off Todd Carney was Canberra's hero, knocking over a 40m field goal with just three minutes of sudden-death extra time remaining.

One of just three clubs with no players involved in last week's State of Origin, the Raiders were expected to put the Cowboys under pressure in Townsville. That didn't look like happening early on, as the Cowboys dominated the opening 20 minutes.

Canberra opened the scoring in the sixth minute when David Howell fielded a Matt Bowen bomb, broke from his own tryline and fed the ball to centre Phil Graham for a length-of-the-field try. But the Cowboys responded when Gavin Cooper scored the second try of his NRL career. Johnathan Thurston kicked North Queensland into an 8-6 lead with a penalty.

But that penalty proved the catalyst for the Raiders to take control in the second quarter. Graham returned Howell's favour when he regathered his own chip kick and turned the ball inside for the winger to score Canberra's second try. Clinton Schifcoske's conversion put the Raiders 12-8 ahead, which remained the score at halftime, and his penalty was the only scoring of the third quarter.

The Cowboys levelled the scores with a 62nd-minute converted try, after a long-range move was finished in the corner by Thurston, his 10th of the season. That swung the momentum back North Queensland's way but each time the Raiders' tryline was threatened, they made mistakes.

Cowboys 14 (G. Cooper, J. Thurston tries; Thurston 3 goals).
Raiders 15 (P. Graham, D. Howell tries; C. Schifcoske 3 goals; T. Carney field goal).