Parra delivered one of their best wins in years on Friday night – exactly the victory they needed at this point in their season – along with one of the strangest golden point matches we’ve seen. While Mitch Moses booted through the winning field goal, this wasn’t the end of the pointscoring, since leg contact from Scott Drinkwater, his first penalty in over a year, meant that Ronald Volkman added the two point kick after the Eels had technically won it. A three-point golden-point win, then, a poetic conclusion to a game that was all surprises.

For while this was a blue and gold victory, only their second in their last seven games, it was a strange one – their second this season in which they conceded 30 points or more, following their 40-32 victory over the Broncos in Round 2, and their most missed tackles (54) in a win on record, even as their 93% completion rate (43/46) was their best since early 2023. On the other side of the Stedden, this was the Cowboys’ first loss in 15 games when leading at the break, testament to the grit and resilience of Parra as the game unfolded.

In fact, this was one of the great to-and-fros of the year, with the visitors continually threatening to shake North Queensland’s home advantage, and the Cowboys just as regularly hitting back with inspirational plays, so that it all came down to the last six minutes, when the Cows went from a 30-22 lead to golden point. Two critical plays from Josh Ado-Carr ushered in Parra’s golden period in the second stanza, the first after the break, the second in the last ten, but Moses was the flagship of this stunning late surge.

Mitch’s performance was a worthy sequel to Teddy’s Blues audition reel with the Roosters earlier in the evening – he may have had less to prove for New South Wales inclusion but there could be no doubt that he is the premier organising halfback in the game after he changed the narrative in front of the Townsville faithful, right down to his 30-metre field goal in the first set of golden point. Clearly hungry to repeat his iconic 2025 Game 2 Origin performance, with its 34-shutout in the first half, he never gave up on the win tonight.

Speaking of Origin contention, the Cowboys’ inability to nab the seven wins needed to put them on par with Sydney and New Zealand turned out to be the least of their issues when Tom Dearden rose limping from an Ado-Carr tackle late in the second half. The diagnosis would turn out to be synedsmosis but he couldn’t leave the field with the North Queensland interchange exhausted, and while he (just) survived until the switch to golden point, a likely 6-8 week recovery period means that Billy Slater will have to rethink the Queensland halves.

Of course the biggest narrative on the park was Jason Taumalolo breaking Johnathan Thurston’s 294-game record to become the most-capped player in North Queensland’s history, and while this suffused the Townsville home ground with the spirit of JT, it wasn’t enough to counteract the other JT’s frustrated record in milestone matches, following his losses in games 1, 100, 150, 200 and 250 of his career. In any case, the Eels neutralised some of the Taumalolo-Thurston hype two plays in with the first try of the evening.

It was a simple yet effective play – a Volkman kick that Jordan Samrani leaped a metre above Jake Clifford to collect, prefiguring his two try involvements in the closing six minutes, before offloading out the back for a right sweep that saw Brian Kelly crash over for the first four. Dearden hit back eight minutes later at the end of an accumulation of North Queensland possession by holding up the short ball just long enough to tempt Charlie Guymer to turn in, as Heilum Luki crossed through some spotty Joash Papalii defence.

The first ten minutes had set the stage for the great arm wrestle of this game, and sure enough Parramatta responded with another assertive try at the start of the second quarter, when Tallyn Da Silva set up Jack De Belin to approach the crossbars, scooted around to collect the play-the-ball, ducked under Luki, planted the left fend on Dearden – the two architects of the first Cowboys try – and wrong-footed Thomas Mikaele altogether to make it a 10-4 scoreline with the first conversion from Moses, who was starting to make waves.

Three plays later Mitch popped an inside ball to Junior Paulo, and like Da Silva collected it again from dummy half for the kick, while Scott Drinkwater got a little complacent beneath it, so certain that he’d collect it in goal that he spilled it over the backline instead. For the moment, though, Parra couldn’t harness Moses’ momentum, as Drinky went short with the dropout, North Queensland got it back, and a good decoy from Griffin Neame set up Clifford to dance over the barest of ankle taps from Luki, who was having a tough night in defence.

With a 12-10 scoreline heading into the sheds the Eels were doing well to hold their own and yet nobody could have predicted the Parramatta resurgence that would come in the second half. Five minutes after the break Ado-Carr provided the first of two galvanising runs, this time off a Volkman kick to the left that Braidon Burns was much better placed to collect – the Foxx just wanted it more, collecting the Steeden centimetres off the ground and smashing over with the same pre-Blues energy Tedesco had brought against Gold Coast.

True to the spirit of the game, the Cows hit back with two tries – one clutch, one clinical – that constituted their last great consolidation period of the match, and on almost any other night would have been enough to win it. Six minutes after Ado-Carr crossed, the two North Queensland speedsters combined for an escalation of their own, as Tom Chester collected a risky Burns offload, and added some of the sideline metres that would contribute to his career high tally of 228, pivoting in to elude Dylan Walker, and outpacing Papalii to the ten.

Jaxon Purdue was the second ingredient here, surging in from the left touchline on the next play to collect a Dearden short ball and sidestep both Moses and Papalii, in a nice sequel to the Luki try that started North Queensland’s night. Both teams had effectively reset their momentum in these last ten minutes, the Eels through the sheer speed of Ado-Carr, the Cows through the reprisal of Dearden’s assist, so it felt like a possible conversation-stopper when North Queensland managed another try that was as clinical as the last was inspired.

It unfolded as a redemption arc for both Drinky, following his Moses cough-up, and for Luki, following his defensive lapses in the first stanza, as the fullback put the second rower straight past Volkman and into space. From there Luki sent it back into Dearden, effectively assisting his assist for Reed Mahoney, who was by no means the fastest man on the park, but had anticipated the play perfectly from halfway and was in position to score beneath the posts. Parra needed a second reset, and they got it off a second Foxx passion play.

Even better, this time around Ado-Carr literally intercepted North Queensland’s momentum, seizing on a Dearden-Luki ball at the opposition forty and only encountering a feeble Burns ankle tap on his way to the tryline. Time and again, the Eels had dismantled the Dearden-Luki combo that had set up the opposition rhythm, whether by targeting Dearden, Luki or both together, and yet the Cowboys responded, eight later, with a try that was at once more condensed, fractured and sublime than their last clinical combo up the middle.

Chester had already had a big night and this play felt like a key inflection point in his career, a pivotal moment in his focus and discipline, as he survived two disruptions to score a long-ranger off a Clifford pass at speed midway up the park. He bobbled the footy twice, three times, eventually reining it in, and was then brought to ground by Papalii, but managed to rise once more, eventually crossing untouched in a superb flashback to his setup for Purdue. If the Cows had won, this play would have been the symbol of their indomitable drive.

Yet Parra somehow managed to steal the narrative one more time, thanks to two amazing try involvements from Samrani and the apotheosis of Moses’ claim for New South Wales. Five minute from the end, Da Silva charged into the red zone and passed to his fullback, whose offload was knocked on by Mikaele, whose bulk prevented him getting down fast enough to scoop it up. As with the Samrani-Clifford contest at the start of the game, a rapid right play ensued, with Samrani coming off the left boot to elude both Clifford and Purdue.

Two minutes later, Moses saved the best for last, dancing and weaving his way down the sideline and abruptly pivoting back in field like Chester ten minutes before, while Papalii, the man who had halted the North Queensland centre inside the ten, beat Drinky towards the line. There were shades of the 2015 grand final as Moses, like Thurston before him, set up the sideline conversion with the score tied – and missed, bringing the Cows into a golden point showdown that was unthinkable when they were eight ahead six minutes before.

Clifford and Moses both missed field goals in the final minute – Clifford’s ricocheted off the post after a Paulo touch and Moses’ was charged down by Mahoney – but Parra only needed the first set in extra time to win the game. For a moment it looked like they might nab a try, as Volkman found space down the left edge but missed the opportunity to literally hand it to the Foxx, who was squeezing up on his outside. Still, this just paved the way for a more poetic ending, with Moses getting in place to boot through the winning one-pointer.

It also paved the way for a stranger ending, true to the spirit of this unique game, as Drinky made late contact with Mitch for Volkman to add the two after the match had been technically won. Moses remonstrating with the ref about not needing the penalty kick was an instantly iconic image of both his energy and passion in leadership tonight, exactly the energy he wants to impart at Blues camp, while the Cows will need to  work around injuries for both Dearden and Soni Luke as they prepare to take on the Roosters at Magic Round.