Everybody loves Raymond: Bunker gets it right on the big night
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Finally, a play-off match that delivered something the previous ones, featuring the two premierships heavyweights, couldn’t. A contest.
And what a contest it was. Just when you thought you had seen everything, the match-winner came from the rugged Reuben Cotter, after the bunker intervened to decide the contest. Correctly, we should add.
For much of the season, the video referee has been under the gun. What if the man upstairs costs a team when it matters most?
However, Wyatt Raymond, with all the rugby league world sweating on which button he pressed, kept his calm and awarded the try that proved the difference.
“I was happy,” said Cowboys coach Todd Payten. “That’s a great example of someone competing until the play has stopped and Reubes has done that his whole career.”
It has been a bleak season for rugby league north of the border. The Maroons lost the interstate series and three of the Queensland teams failed to qualify for the post-season. Yet North Queensland, despite sporting a defence seemingly too threadbare to make an impact in the post-season, muscled up when it mattered to end Newcastle’s season.
A late try to Tom Dearden blew out the score to 28-16 in the Cowboys’ favour, but it didn’t reflect how close the contest was. It was a match in which, before he came off with a late concussion, veteran winger Kyle Feldt notched yet another record, a club record 22nd try for the season.
Yet for long periods, it appeared an upset was on the cards. Despite enjoying little possession, the Knights led at half-time threatened to steal it.
Reuben Cotter celebrates with Cowboys teammates after his match-winning try.Credit: Getty Images
In the moments before kick-off, while previewing the game for Nine, Andrew Johns made the following observation.
“I never thought in my lifetime that I would ever see a better buy than Ben Kennedy for the Knights,” said the Eighth Immortal. “I think this bloke may have gone past BK, he’s that good.”
This bloke, the highest-paid player in the game on a purported $1.4 million, is Kalyn Ponga. While he couldn’t quite seal the result for his side, Ponga further proved what a shrewd investment the Knights had made.
The star fullback was involved in the lead-up to his side’s first two tries, to Jayden Brailey and Fletcher Sharpe. And then with the scores locked at 16-all, the reigning Dally M medalist set up what appeared to be the match winner, only for Dane Gagai to spill the Steeden as the try line loomed. It was a costly miss.
“I don’t think the scoreboard is a reflection of the fight and effort in this team,” said Newcastle coach Adam O’Brien.
“They are good traits to have as a footy team, as men, as fathers and husbands and all the things these guys have got going on. They are good values to have. If you have resilience and grit to fight through tough periods – whether it’s games or tough periods of your season – they have done that.
“I feel like we have turned the corner a bit in terms of our DNA. Yeah, we want to be sitting here talking about a win, but it’s not through a lack of having a go.”
This was always going to be a huge mountain for the Knights to climb. Sudden-death football had come a week early, after beating the Dolphins the previous week just to qualify for this fixture. Further, game-breaking centre Bradman Best was ruled out with a hamstring injury, as they travelled to a venue at which they last tasted success in 2015.
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When Best’s replacement, back-rower Dylan Lucas, threw an intercept to Feldt it seemed an insurmountable obstacle. Yet the Knights did not go quietly.
Lucas was one of his side’s best, scoring a wonderful solo try and defending stoutly on his edge.
However, the Cowboys finished over the top of their opponents in the tropical conditions, scoring four second-half tries to set up a crack at Cronulla. When they last met in the play-offs, in 2022, the northerners prevailed courtesy of a 92nd-minute field goal to one of their old boys, Valentine Holmes.
Hopefully, another epic awaits.
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