Gorden Tallis says Cowboys need a Steven Bradbury amount of luck to get through NRL finals

GORDEN Tallis believes the Cowboys would have to pull off a Steven Bradbury-like performance to get through this year’s finals series.

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GORDEN Tallis believes the Cowboys would have to pull off a Steven Bradbury-like performance to get through this year’s finals series.

The Queensland great says while he genuinely believes all eight teams are a chance of taking out this year’s trophy, he does think North Queensland will require a lot of luck to win their second premiership in three years.

The depleted Cowboys just scraped into the top eight ver the weekend, but have shown plenty of courage and potential over the last month despite battling injury after injury.

With Johnathan Thurston (shoulder) and Matt Scott (knee) not there to lead the Cowboys through their seventh consecutive finals series, Tallis says it is going to require a great deal of effort for the gutsy team to succeed.

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“It hurts me to say, but I think the Cowboys would have to have a lot of luck,” he said at Fox League’s finals launch.

“They would be Steven Bradbury if they won the grand final.

“Every single chance they get, they have to capitalise on it. Every single game they go into, they’re a chance.

“The way they play, the way they’ve hung in there, the way they’re having a go for each other … they’ve still being playing for 80 minutes and any side that does that is going to be hard to beat.

“That’s all you can ask.”

The Cowboys’ finals campaign will start on Sunday when they take on the reigning premiers Cronulla in a knockout clash in Sydney.

But just because they made the top eight does not mean their injury woes have lessened at all, with winger Antonio Winterstein (hamstring) and fullback Lachlan Coote (ankle) on restricted duties, while playmaker Te Maire Martin is also battling through a knee injury to help keep the Cowboys afloat.

Given their run of injuries, the Cowboys have won just one of their past six matches.

Cronulla was one of those sides who were victorious, beating a 15-man North Queensland 26-16 after the Cowboys lost Kalyn Ponga and John Asiata throughout the match to injury.

But despite the losses, they have still shown plenty of promise and Tallis said this is what can spur them on to create that Bradbury-like run to grand final day.

“Even with injuries, you get energy for the finals,” he said.

“Some of those guys, they’ve won competitions, they’ve been in the big games. They just have to replicate what they’ve done before.

“If Jason Taumalolo and Michael Morgan and Jake Granville have a day out, there’s enough points in those guys.

“If those guys play to their ability, the other (injured) guys just have to do the simple things and do their jobs.”