It is regarded as the greatest finish to a grand final in rugby league’s 112-year history.

The historic first all-Queensland NRL decider in 2015 came down to the final siren, and then required extra-time, for the North Queensland Cowboys to beat the Brisbane Broncos.

The teams traded blows for much of the gripping encounter as Brisbane held a 16-12 lead heading into the final minute of the game.

From there, a dramatic series of events culminated in Johnathan Thurston kicking a golden-point field goal to deliver the Cowboys their first NRL premiership.

Here is how it transpired ­– remembered by those in the thick of the action.

ONE SECOND FROM GLORY

THE BRISBANE Broncos are about to snap a nine-year premiership drought and collect their seventh title as they led 16-12 at ANZ Stadium.

There’s only 72 seconds remaining in the 80-minute match, and Broncos five-eighth Anthony Milford – arguably the best player on the field – bursts through the Cowboys’ defence.

From deep inside Broncos territory, Milford grabs the ball and steps past three exhausted Cowboys defenders, running over the halfway line.

“When Milford raced away, I felt we had the game won then,” recalls former Broncos coach Wayne Bennett, who was back at the helm of Brisbane after six years at St George Illawarra and Newcastle.

And Bennett wasn’t the only one.

“I remember Milf went through and made a break – at that point I was pretty buggered and I thought ‘this is it’,” Cowboys five-eighth Michael Morgan says.

But it wasn’t.

“Then, in an instant, he loses the ball,” Bennett says.

Cowboys winger Kyle Feldt knocks the ball out of Milford’s grasp, seemingly forward, but it’s scooped up by Broncos halfback Ben Hunt. Crisis averted.

But Feldt isn’t done. He legally dislodges the ball from Hunt’s hands and grabs it, giving the Cowboys possession with 64 seconds left in the game.

“I still can’t believe I got the ball stripped out (by Feldt), I just had to hold it,” Milford says.

Feldt’s play was huge, but it was only the start of what was to come.

“It was a freakish play that went unnoticed because of everything that happened after it,” Morgan says.

As Feldt plays the ball just short of halfway, the Cowboys have exactly one minute and six tackles to produce a miracle.

“Over the previous couple of years we’d built this rivalry where the games went to the last minute or even seconds,” says former Broncos forward Sam Thaiday, who was playing in his second and ultimately last grand final.

The Cowboys shift the ball from right to left, where centre Kane Linnett juggles it, but holds on.

Earlier, Linnett had spilt the ball over the line in what could have been the premiership-winning play.

Cowboys forwards Jason Taumalolo and Matt Scott make inspiring charges before the final play the ball with 15 seconds remaining.

Hooker Jake Granville throws a sloppy pass to Cowboys star Johnathan Thurston ­­­­– a man with a reputation for delivering in big moments.

“I remember seeing all these Broncos jerseys around me so I had to run backwards to get some time,” recalls Thurston.

He shrugs off Broncos prop Adam Blair and hooker Andrew McCullough, before realising he is about to be wrapped up by Corey Parker.

“I spotted ‘Morgo’ standing there by himself so I threw him the ball and watched him do the rest,” Thurston says.

Morgan catches the ball 24m from the line and with five seconds remaining.

“My first thought when I got it was to kick it for ‘Feldty’,” Morgan says.

“But I was able to keep running and running into their line and then I didn’t have any other option but to pass it to Feldty.”

Morgan attracts Milford and Broncos centre Jack Reed, who he turns inside out, before sucking winger Corey Oates in from out wide.

He throws a sublime one-handed pass to an unmarked Feldt with one second remaining.

“All I did was hold out on the wing,” Feldt says.

“Morgo got a brilliant one-handed flick pass away and I needed to make four steps to get to the tryline. It was 16-all with a kick to come.

“I felt a weight lift off my shoulders as soon as I put the ball down. I thought about 2011 and missing the kick to win (the under-20s grand final). Now I had scored the try to tie it up.”

The Broncos were one second, one tackle, one dropped ball away from clinching the 2015 NRL premiership.

Instead, fullback Darius Boyd slumps to his knees and throws his hands to his head in dismay as Feldt touches down on the stroke of full-time, becoming the poster boy for the shattered Broncos.

“I’m coming across in cover and then he’s scored … and that’s when it has just hit me,” Boyd says.

“What was it? One second, three seconds to go? One final play. I’ve seen highlights. I’ve had people speak to me about it.

“You dream about the good moments, kicking a goal from the sideline or scoring the winning try, and winning the grand final. No one wants to dream about losing it with a couple of seconds to go.”

From further in field, Parker looks on as his mate tumbles to the ground.

“When Feldt scored, ‘Darbs’ (Boyd) fell to his knees like someone had shot him and we all felt that way,” he says.

“The Cowboys were just playing hot potato keeping the ball alive and I should have tackled Thurston. Looking back, I should have just taken his head off with a high tackle because we were up by four points so a penalty goal didn’t matter.

“But I went for ‘JT’ around his hips which allowed him to pass the ball out of his arse to Morgan and then you know what happened.

“Unfortunately, we let ‘Morgo’ run too far with the ball. All the big games come down to moments. I’m annoyed that I just didn’t clean up ‘JT’ because there was five seconds to go and even if they get a penalty, we reset our line and probably win.”

Referee Gerard Sutton sends the play to The Bunker to be reviewed.

There is no issue.

Feldt plants the ball down with one hand and the score is 16-all.

Among the hysteria, Channel 9 commentator Phil Gould stumbles over his words.

“Well if you don’t believe in fairytales, we might see the giant fairytale of all-time here right now with Thurston and a kick from the sideline to win a premiership for the Cowboys,” he says.

This finish cannot be scripted.

THE SIDELINE CONVERSION

UP UNTIL THIS moment, Thurston has kicked 724 goals from 916 attempts since making his NRL debut in 2002.

The four-time Dally M Medal winner’s 79 per cent success rate and, more importantly, ability to deliver under pressure, has made him one of the NRL’s elite goal kickers.

But he has never faced a task like this.

Kick the goal from the sideline and the Cowboys are NRL premiers for the first time.

Miss and the match heads into golden point extra-time.

“It’s what dreams are made of, isn’t it?” Thurston recalls.

Nearly five minutes pass from the time Feldt puts the ball down to when Thurston takes the conversion.

“It was way too long,” Parker says.

“It worked against him I reckon. I was losing my marbles at the ref because he was taking so long.”

But Thurston defends his timing.

“I was spent, I was sucking in the big ones, my legs felt like jelly,” he says.

“If I had kicked the ball straight away it wouldn’t have made it to the sticks. I had to wait until I got a bit more energy in my legs.

“If I was in that position again I’d take that long.”

The other 12 Cowboys players stand together near halfway, crossing their fingers that the ball sails through the posts but planning for the alternate scenario.

Thurston sets the ball up before Sutton interrupts and tells him to bring it closer to the sideline.

Cowboys coach Paul Green has no doubt Thurston will land the goal.

“I was convinced he would kick it,” Green says.

“From outside the right scrum line he had only missed two kicks all year. He’s a big game player and ‘JT’ loved those moments. It was tailor-made for him.”

The ball starts just outside the right post and looks perfect for Thurston’s trademark hook.

He thinks it’s going over and begins to raise his right arm and index finger to celebrate.

But for some reason the ball doesn’t swing like it usually does.

It cannons into the right upright and bounces back.

The touch judges wave their flags. He has missed.

“I crashed, my dreams were gone, I had dreamt of that moment as a kid,” Thurston says.

“A fair few of the boys came over and were all telling me ‘don’t worry, we will get them in extra-time’. I had to snap out of it and concentrate on what’s next. I had to mentally and physically get on with it.”

Morgan is the first on scene.

“That was because I remembered the under-20s game when ‘Feldty’ missed and the reaction was different ­­­– ­­everyone dropped their heads and we lost,” Morgan says.

“‘Johnno’ is someone that you need ‘on’ when he is in your team. I knew he’d be hurting. I told him ‘it’s all good, we will get them here’.

“He was rattled. You could see by his reaction that he was gutted.”

And Bennett was confident the moment would be too much for Thurston and Brisbane would get another chance to win the game.

“I honestly didn’t think he would kick it,” Bennett says.

“I thought there was too much pressure. As great as Thurston is, I didn’t think he would get it.

“To be honest, I didn’t even watch the kick. I was busy watching a replay in the box of the Feldt try, so I didn’t even see him line the kick up.

“All I heard was the crowd roar. I look up and think ‘what’s happened? Shit, he has just missed the kick’.

“I was expecting the game to go into overtime so I was thinking ‘what message do I get down to the guys for extra-time’.”

Thurston regroups and correctly calls heads in a coin-toss with retiring Broncos captain Justin Hodges, who had escaped suspension during the week to play his final NRL game.

“We’ll kick-off,” Thurston says to Sutton.

It proves to be a pivotal moment.

HUNT’S AGONY, THURSTON’S ECSTASY

OVER THE PAST few years, Feldt had perfected the art of the kick-off.

His booming right boot had the ability to send the ball much higher than any other kicker in the NRL, giving the Cowboys more time to put pressure on the receiving team.

As Feldt strikes the ball to open the first five-minute period of golden point extra-time, the noise emanating from the 82,758-strong crowd is deafening.

The Steeden floats in the air for nearly five seconds – an eternity for the man waiting to catch it.

That man is Ben Hunt.

Standing two metres in front of the tryline, Hunt spills the ball.

“I was trying to play on as if nothing had happened, that was my plan,” says Thaiday, who picked up the ball and charged into the Cowboys’ defensive line.

But assistant referee Ben Cummins is only metres away and signals knock-on.

“I thought the Cowboys had the advantage in extra-time,” Bennett says.

“Thurston had a history of kicking field goals and we had no-one in that area. We had done practise on it but we just weren’t good at kicking field goals.

“We were still in the fight but that was taken away from us from the kick-off.

“As a team, we shouldn’t have been in that situation. There were a couple of key things during regular time that brought us to that place.

“It wasn’t about Ben Hunt dropping it. We had other opportunities.”

Hunt falls to his haunches immediately. His eyes turn glassy. Cowboys prop James Tamou consoles him along with numerous Broncos players.

“It was a heartbreaking night,” Hunt says.

“It was a tough one for everyone and everyone that loses a grand final knows what it feels like.

The Cowboys are gifted possession 10m from the tryline via a scrum. Thurston has already kicked a career-high five field goals in the season.

“I thought we were a sure thing from then – ‘Johnno’ would kick it,” Morgan says.

“The plan was for me to feed the scrum and Jake to fire it straight to ‘JT’ with everyone else blocking.”

Thurston makes it crystal clear – he would attempt a field goal directly from the scrum.

“It was a perfect position ­– right beside the sticks,” he says.

“I knew Darius defended at lock so I told my two blockers to block him. The defensive line was 20m away from me so I knew the only pressure I would be getting was from Darius.

“When I got the ball I looked up and the blockers (Ethan Lowe and Feldt) had let Darius straight through. There was too much pressure so I took the tackle. We had to reset and get back into position.”

Taumalolo hits up the next tackle.

Then the Cowboys reset for Thurston, who is again under too much pressure and passes to fullback Lachlan Coote.

Linnett takes the third tackle near the sideline before the Cowboys make their way back infield towards the left post where Tamou is tackled by Alex Glenn and Thaiday.

“Jimmy (Tamou) got to Alex Glenn, which meant ‘Johnno’ was kicking on the right side of the ruck and they didn’t have too much pressure coming from that side,” Morgan says.

“Jimmy got the perfect play the ball because no markers were set and their line wasn’t back in time.”

Tamou plays the ball and Granville fires it to Thurston standing on the 20m line. The clock reads 82:16 when Thurston drops the ball to his right boot.

“It was windy that night and I dropped the ball and could see it bending as it fell,” Thurston says.

“I struck it in the belly of the ball and looked up to see it going through. As soon as it came off the boot I knew it wasn’t missing.

“It’s no doubt the greatest memory of my career.”

Veteran Channel 9 caller Ray “Rabs” Warren sums up the moment succinctly as the score ticks over to 17-16, and Cowboys jump on each other, Gavin Cooper splitting Thurston’s eyebrow to add to the theatre.

“He’s got the field goal, he’s got the premiership,” Warren calls.

“He has gone from a captain to a legend and, probably, rugby league immortality.”

The Broncos lay strewn across the ANZ Stadium turf.

One second away from glory.

Five years later they are the NRL’s wooden spooners and haven’t been to a grand final since.

“There was this underlying belief that everyone wanted ‘JT’ to win a premiership,” Parker says.

“I was gutted. Shattered. But I remember the cameras showing (Melbourne forward) Ryan Hoffman crying in 2006 and that became a regular vision of grand final days, and I didn’t want to be portrayed like that. So I tried not to show my emotion.

“I didn’t want the Cowboys guys to see what they had done. I didn’t want to be one of those guys captured crying for years and years.”

As the Cowboys erupted, Morgan makes a beeline for winger Antonio Winterstein, whose brother Francis took his own life earlier in the year.

“I went to Antonio straight away because he lost his younger brother,” Morgan says.

“I knew it was a tough year for him. I’d been through something similar (the death of close friend Alex Elisala in 2013). I knew it meant a lot to him at the time. I had a little moment with him which was pretty cool.

“I still wish ‘Johnno’ had kicked the sideline goal and we finished there and then to save Benny Hunt all the pain he suffered after.

“I really like ‘Hunty’ and no one deserves that to happen. He got a lot of the blame but he was hard done by because he got them there to start with. The fallout afterwards for him was pretty big.”

CHEERS AND TEARS

THE 2015 PREMIERSHIP arrives 20 years after the Cowboys came to life in Townsville.

It’s the first genuine silverware for a club that is the pride of north Queensland and is loved by people throughout the state.

“It meant everything to everyone involved with the Cowboys,” veteran football manager Peter Parr says.

“It was exhilarating. It was the happiest I will ever be in football given what the club means to so many people.

“For so many years before that, we thought we were a chance to win the comp and a few things conspired against us. For all of us, it was the culmination of a lot of hard work and we understood what it meant to the people of north Queensland.”

As the Cowboys celebrate, Thurston and fellow co-captain Scott hold a long embrace captured on camera.

“It was such a great moment for both of us,” Thurston says.

“I was made captain in 2007 at 23-years-old and in 2010 they made a decision to have co-captains (with Scott).

“There had been conversations between ‘Thumper’ (Scott) and myself throughout those five years about him wanting to give up the captaincy. I had to talk him out of that.

“I was in his bridal party. He’s one of my best mates. It was such a good moment to share with him.”

At the same time, the Broncos are shattered. It was a moment missed, literally by one second. For many, the pain is still raw.

“To this day I still haven’t watched it and I don’t know if I ever will watch it from start to finish,” Thaiday says.

“It’s not that I’m trying to forget it. It’s such a great part of history, it was a little bit special being an all-Queensland final that went into golden point.

“There’s a lot of history and memories around it, but for the time being, until that pain simmers down, I won’t be watching it.”

Milford still lives with regret.

“I made that half-break and then I always think if I just held that ball and Benny Hunt kicks downfield and completes our set, we are the premiers,” he says.

“What happened in 2015 still haunts me. I still remember the final minute. I get flashbacks of it.

“If you ask any side that has lost a grand final they’d say the same, but they haven’t lost the way we have … ever.”

Bennett had a perfect 6-0 record in grand finals with the Broncos up until the night of October 4, 2015.

Now at South Sydney, he is still searching for his eighth premiership and first since the Dragons’ 2010 triumph.

“I worked so hard all my life not to lose grand finals,” he says.

“I hate losing them, because it leaves you with nothing. You are just so empty.”

Thurston is awarded the Clive Churchill Medal for his efforts and celebrates on the turf with daughter Frankie, blood dripping down his face, in what becomes an iconic image of the grand final.

The Cowboys make their way back to Townsville the next day, arriving to a heroic welcome.

“When we got home there were thousands of people at the airport, the streets were lined from the airport to the stadium where there were 20,000 people waiting,” Morgan says.

“That was one of the best parts, coming home to that. It was awesome.

“We knew we were going to a function at the stadium so when there were that many people there waiting, it was really special, I loved it.

“You do it once and all you want to do is do it again, but unfortunately they’re hard to come by.”