The Cowboys fought hard but couldn’t capitalise on first half opportunities and went down to Melbourne 16-10, as coach Paul Green said his side just weren’t clinical enough with the footy.
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“Ethan Lowe’s season is finished”, he said. “Unfortunately he has injured his spinal cord”, said Green, clearly disappointed for his strike player.
“I believe he should be playing.it didn’t look great, but the bottom line is if that’s bringing the game into disrepute, there’s lots of things we do out there that are much worse than that but we don’t get charged for it”.
“It’s really devastating. He has been one of our most consistent players so far this year”.
Youngster Coen Hess is on standby to replace Lowe – a Queensland Origin 18th man this year – in the starting line-up with either Patrick Kaufusi or John Asiata expected to be added to the bench. “We move on”, he said.
“He is a pretty tough, experienced character”.
Green has now lost centre Kane Linnett, Lowe and possibly Winterstein, while Maroons forward Matt Scott is carrying a dicey back.
Bennett believes it sets an unfairly low threshold for what can be considered contrary to the spirit of the game.
But the Broncos will need to beat the charge if Roberts’ season is to be prolonged and avert a mini crisis in the outside backs.
“They’re a pretty disciplined team and you are not going to win up there if you don’t play with some risk factor”.
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“They’re quality opponents, I think there’s definitely no easy games left but we’ve had some nice close ones with them, none closer than the GF previous year”, Scott said.
