By Adam Pengilly
One of the best experiences of sitting on a suburban hill watching the footy was cheering home the old daily double.
It was the best type of lotto, mostly because it involved sport, and you didn’t have to watch those stupid balls rolling out of the machine every Tuesday night and still go through the pain of the supplementary numbers when you’d already lost.
This was just two simple numbers, one for the home team and another for the away team. If you managed to draw the dreaded eight or 10, you would throw the ticket in the air almost instantly. What chance of a prop being the first try-scorer? The lucky winner was always beckoned to meet an official behind the scoreboard to collect the prize.
Accor Stadium and its concrete cavern is about as far away from the romance of a Leichhardt, a Brookvale, a Kogarah or a Shark Park — and it would have been no fun if you were playing the daily double on Sunday.
The away team number was 24, a winger in Murray Taulagi no less, and one of the Cowboys’ best players.
Maybe Todd Payten was just taking the mickey with all those who bothered to buy a ticket. He lined up all his State of Origin players in jerseys you usually throw at a bloke in case of an emergency. Reece Robson, 20. Jeremiah Nanai, 21. Valentine Holmes, 22. Reuben Cotter, 23. Taulagi, 24.
Scott Drinkwater starred for the Cowboys.Credit: Getty
Naturally, No.24 scored first and No.22 the next two. Even the half-time score, 5-0, was a doozy. Not many NRL matches make sense at this strange time of year.
But is it possible that, in the middle of the Origin grind, when they are supplying as many players as any other club, that we’re finally starting to see the real Cowboys?
Saddled near the bottom of the ladder only a month ago, last year’s preliminary finalists are just two points outside the top eight as the Rabbitohs’ season hit a serious speed bump without Latrell Mitchell in a 31-6 loss on Sunday.
“Where we sat in the ladder just gave us no alternative,” Payten said of his Origin players backing up. “The fact that we need to win takes away that flexibility that other teams further up the ladder have. We don’t win if they don’t back up.”
Latrell Mitchell watches on.Credit: Getty
It wasn’t even the players returning from Origin — Cameron Murray and Damien Cook — who were the main problem for South Sydney.
Cody Walker, pushing for a NSW recall for game three, just couldn’t make anything stick. The harder he tried, the worse it seemed to get. Lachlan Ilias put in one of those trick shot kicks from deep inside his own half before the last tackle with just a minute left before the break. The problem? No one seemed to know it was coming. Scott Drinkwater then had time to boot a field goal for a half-time scoreline which was a rugby league relic.
After the break, the 20s kicked in. Holmes scored after the outstanding Drinkwater blew through the Rabbitohs’ brittle middle, and he touched down again when Taulagi batted a bomb back to his Queensland teammate.
No.7 Ilias made up for his earlier blue scoring almost untouched from a scrum play, a number at least most daily double desperates could support.
A dejected Cody Walker, who had an afternoon to forget at Accor Stadium.Credit: Getty
But already, South Sydney’s number was up.
“If we wait any longer, we won’t be in the finals,” Rabbitohs coach Jason Demetriou said. “Simple as that. We’ve done a great job to put ourselves in a position to have a crack at this competition.
“But unless we get back on the horse and get back to being the Rabbitohs we have been to start the first 11 or 12 rounds, then we’ll be in some trouble.”
A team which was tearing its way into the top four a month ago has now lost four of its last five since Mitchell went down with a calf problem in Origin camp. Their defence in that time reads like an ugly lotto line: 36, 33, 28, 36, 31.
Sounds like a set of numbers Payten could get around.
NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 31 (Valentine Holmes 2, Murray Taulagi, Kulikefu Finefeuiaki, Tom Dearden tries; Holmes 4 goals, Scott Drinkwater field goal) defeated SOUTH SYDNEY RABBITOHS 6 (Lachlan Ilias try; Blake Taaffe goal)at Accor Stadium. Referee: Gerard Sutton. Crowd: 11,262.
