North Queensland’s dumfounding misery this season continued with a demolition at Shark Park on Thursday night.
The Cowboys were once again a shadow of the team that finished last season in third as they fell to Cronulla 44-6 in the round nine opener.
And to make matters worse it looks almost certain they’ll lose representative backrower Jeremiah Nanai for a number of weeks after he was sin-binned for a hip-drop tackle.
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Nanai was marched late in the game when he came down on the legs of Sharks forward Braden Hamlin-Uele, and he is sure to be whacked by the match review committee on Friday morning.
He was the second player to be binned, following teammate Coen Hess who bizarrely stuck a leg out to trip Jesse Ramien earlier in the night.
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“It’s a trip,” league legend Andrew Johns said.
“In years gone by, in the good old days or the bad old days, in the 70s and 80s that was an automatic send off.
“That’s a deadset trip.”
North Queensland was also hit by injury in what was a grim trip to Sydney’s south.
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Chad Townsend was pulled from the field with a calf complaint that he reportedly carried into the game.
Thomas Chester was then helped from the field in the dying minutes with an apparent knee injury.
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“That’s a miserable night for the Cowboys,” Phil Gould said.
Cowboys coach Todd Payten refused to blame penalties or the sin-bins for the scoreline.
“I’m not making any excuses,” Payten said.
“That was not NRL standard tonight.”
Earlier, Gould was astounded at the soft defence of the North Queensland middles after another easy Sharks linebreak.
The Cowboys missed an astonishing 43 tackles to Cronulla’s 13, as well as conceding seven linebreaks.
“You never saw things like that last year,” Gould said.
“That’s just a one-out miss in the front line.”
Cronulla halfback Nicho Hynes was awarded the inaugural Paul Green Medal in honour of the late great player and coach.
The Cowboys take on the Roosters in Magic Round next week, while the Sharks play the Dolphins.
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