• North Queensland Toyota Cowboys under-20s coach Todd Payten will be up against two of his own in the curtain-raiser for Wednesday night’s second State of Origin match at the MCG. Payten is coach of the NSW under-18 team to play Queensland in an age-group Origin prelude to the main game. In the Queensland team to play against Payten’s men are current NYC-contracted players Bacho Salam and Mitchell Dunn, while future Cowboys NYC players Enari Tuala and Reuben Cotter are also in the young Maroons side. Tuala and Cotter are in the Cowboys’ elite pathway program and attend Kirwan State High School and Sarina State High respectively.
• Monday night’s epic come-from-behind win over the Parramatta Eels will go down as one of the greatest ever rugby league comebacks. Down 30-6 with 24 minutes left in the match, the Cowboys piled on five unanswered tries in 11 minutes to win the match 36-30. There was still 12 minutes left in the match by the time the Cowboys had finished their try-scoring blitz. Statistically, it was the third biggest comeback – by points trailing – in NRL/ARL history. The Cowboys class of 1998 overcame a 26-point deficit to defeat the Panthers, while Penrith itself reeled in the same margin to beat the Warriors in 2009. Gavin Cooper’s seven-minute hat-trick – with tries in the 60th, 64th and 67th minutes – is believed to be the fastest-ever by a forward.
• Riding high on the Cowboys’ brilliant fightback on Monday night was a vocal contingent of supporters who braved the crisp western Sydney Monday night air to cheer the visitors to victory. The fans were a mixture of Sydney-based Cowboys fans, travelling North Queenslanders and others who made the trip for the game. By the time North Queensland were midway through their recovery mission, chants of 'Cowboys, Cowboys!' could be heard around the stadium at Parramatta >>> watch the video here
• The Cowboys have taken full advantage of the bye weekend to try something different this week with the staging of Seek in the City, a team-building exercise where teams raced around Townsville, solving clues and completing challenges in the name of teamwork and fun. Wednesday’s activity saw teams race around the CBD, including up Castle Hill, with two taxi rides allowed during the race for the longer transition legs. Teams also had to complete an 'electric fence' challenge involving filling up a cylinder with water so that a ping-pong ball inside would eventually pop out. The catch? The cylinder was full of holes and enclosed in a virtual electric fence (a rope in reality) which you couldn’t touch. Let’s just say the group dynamics were as varied as they were entertaining.
