The Leeds Rhinos player was given a straight red card after his right fist connected with Tamou’s chin, knocking him to the ground during the World Club Challenge on Monday morning (AEST).
Advertisement
Leeds’ earlier tremendous efforts then began to take their toll as centre Justin O’Neill strolled past some exhausted tackling to score two tries in the last 12 minutes and Thurston took his goal tally to five from seven attempts.
“We won our first NRL premiership previous year and you’ve got to do that to get this opportunity”.
“There’s certainly improvement there, but tonight was about winning a championship, so we got the job done from that respect”.
Leeds’s defeat was compounded when they were forced to play the last few minutes a man down after Mitch Garbutt was sent off for punching James Tamou.
“I see the sacrifices they make week in and week out and how hard they train so they deserve everything they get”.
It was fast and furious in the first 40 minutes.
The Cowboys’ success completed a 3-0 victory for Australia’s NRL over England’s Super League.
Injury-hit Rhinos matched the Aussies in the first half and it was 4-4 at half-time, but there was no stopping the Cowboys in the second period when they ran in six unanswered tries.
“We’re a special bunch of guys now and we’ve achieved something special and we’re the world club champions now so they should be proud”.
The Cowboys, whose coach Paul Green had the luxury of being able to field the team that beat Brisbane Broncos in October’s Grand Final, had to cope with a gale-force wind that blew horizontally into their faces in the first half and they found it tough going against fired-up opponents.
“Within 10 minutes they scored two tries and heads go down after that”.
But the Cowboys roared into life in the second half, firstly taking advantage of a spilled bomb by Leeds’ winger Ash Handley just 90 seconds after the break, with Kane Linnett feasting on the scraps to score a converted try out wide to reclaim the lead for the visitors.
Advertisement
James Tamou (127m) and Ben Hannant (152m) were outstanding up front for the Cowboys, Coote was faultless in hard conditions and Thurston picked up where he left off in 2015 with a classy display that sparked the majority of North Queensland’s points.
