After trailing 12-10 at the break, the Raiders scored four second tries to overwhelm the Cowboys, who made the score more respectable with a double to Matt Sing near the end.

Phillip Graham continued his fine first grade form be scoring either side of the halftime break in the centres, while fullback Clinton Schifcofske backed up well from last Wednesday night’s State of Origin.

The Raiders win moves them past the Cowboys, who are last on points differential to fellow strugglers Penrith.

The Cowboys made the perfect start by scoring on their first set of six. Queensland Origin representative John Doyle created some space with a fine offload to Peter Jones, who in turn found centre Ashley Alberts lurking for his first NRL try.

Fullback Matt Bowen, in the unfamiliar goalkicking role, landed the conversion to open up a 6-0 lead.

The Raiders were terrible early, static play coupled with some poor skill errors contributed to North Queensland attack, but thankfully they limited the Cowboys to just the one try in the opening 20 minutes.

North Queensland also lost second rower Shane Muspratt in the 13th minute with what appears to be a broken wrist.

The Raiders hit back in the 22nd minute: Jamaal Lolesi regathered a cross field kick from Brett Finch, and good hands from Canberra resulted in a four pointer to Terry Martin under the posts.

Soon after the Martin try North Queensland re-established the advantage. The Cowboys were enjoying 60 percent of possession and went ahead by six points with a converted try to hooker George Gatis, who skipped past ordinary defence from dummy half.

In the last ten minutes Canberra began to get control of the football, and were able to put more pressure on the North Queensland tryline. With 4 minutes remaining Graham scored in the corner to cut the deficit to two points at the break.

Bouyed by Graham’s try Canberra came out hard after half time. The Cowboys weren’t as sharp as they were for much of the first half, and began struggling to get a fair share of the football.

After earlier bombing a try, the Raiders took their first lead of the match in the 49th minute when Jason Croker crashed over in the left hand corner. Schifcofske missed again from a difficult angle, but the Raiders were up 14-12.

Both sides struggled for a period with poor handling and tactical blunders, but the Raiders persevered and blew the game open with a try to Ruben Wiki and the second for Graham in the 65th minute.

The Cowboys then conceded another try, this time to Raiders winger Michael Robertson, sealing victory for the Raiders.

North Queensland added respectability with two unconverted tries to Matt Sing in the last five minutes, making the final score 32-20 in favour of the Raiders.