North Queensland Toyota Cowboys coach Paul Green has made some late personnel and positional changes ahead of tonight’s round 17 NRL match against the St George Illawarra Dragons.
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With their State of Origin quartet in Johnathan Thurston, Matt Scott, Michael Morgan (all Queensland) and James Tamou (New South Wales) missing, several players have been promoted to starting roles tonight, including halves Ray Thompson and Robert Lui.
Prop Scott Bolton – in his second rugby league match back from injury – comes into the starting 13 after being initially named off the bench.
Sam Hoare goes on to the bench, while Glenn Hall will play his third NRL game this year as Patrick Kaufusi goes to non-playing 18th man.
Kick-off for the Dragons game is at 7.30pm – broadcast on Fox Sports 1 and 4TOFM with live updates at twitter.com/nthqldcowboys.
COWBOYS: 1 Lachlan Coote, 2 Matthew Wright, 3 Justin O’Neill, 4 Kane Linnett, 5 Antonio Winterstein, 6 Ray Thompson, 7 Robert Lui, 8 Ben Hannant, 9 Jake Granville, 16 Scott Bolton, 11 Gavin Cooper (c), 12 Ethan Lowe, 13 Jason Taumalolo. Interchange: 10 Sam Hoare 14 Rory Kostjasyn 15 John Asiata 18 Glenn Hall.
