Corey Parker has revealed his grand final regret - not smashing Cowboys champion Johnathan Thurston with a “stiff-arm” to seal a Broncos premiership.

Parker and a posse of Broncos and Cowboys legends have opened up about the 2015 grand final epic as the two fierce Queensland foes prepare to clash again on Friday night.

The round 3 derby blockbuster between the clubs at Suncorp Stadium marks the 10th anniversary of North Queensland’s 17-16 fairytale win over the Broncos in an extra-time heart-stopper in the 2015 decider at Homebush.

For Parker, it was far from a fairytale. It was sheer heartbreak. A decade on, the former Broncos warhorse admits he still has nightmare flashes of the moment Thurston blasted the extra-time field-goal to break the Cowboys’ 20-year premiership hoodoo.

“That loss kept me up at night,” Parker says, shaking his head. “It seriously did. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years ... I still think about it today.”

MY GRAND REGRET

Time may have healed wounds, but Parker still laments the premiership that got away.

Of the 26 men on the field, Parker was a pivotal participant in the final minutes of madness that saw the Cowboys produce the greatest Houdini act of all.

North Queensland looked gone. Brisbane were ahead 16-12. There are six seconds left on the clock when Thurston takes a poor pass, goes around in circles looking for an opening, before coming eye-to-eye with his Queensland Origin teammate Parker.

In that moment, Parker instinctively goes low and tackles Thurston at the hip, allowing him to offload to Michael Morgan.

If he had his time again, the Broncos No.13 would have illegally bashed Thurston to deliver Brisbane’s first title since 2006.

“Thurston was searching, he was going nowhere,” Parker recalls.

“He came to my right shoulder and I hit him low and slid down.

“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.

“If I stiff-armed him and gave away a penalty, the game would have been over. The Broncos win the premiership.

“I’m still annoyed that I just didn’t clean up ‘JT’ ... because we all know what happened after that.”

THE COWBOYS MIRACLE

Even before the Parker-Thurston moment, the Broncos looked home and hosed.

There was only 72 seconds remaining when Broncos five-eighth Anthony Milford – arguably the best player on the field and within touching distance of the Clive Churchill Medal – 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 for his second coming at Brisbane after six years at St George Illawarra and Newcastle.

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.

“Suddenly, I think ‘shit, this is not good’.”

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.

MIGHTY MORGO

Cowboys forwards Jason Taumalolo makes an inspirational charge before Thurston hands off to Matt Scott, who lumbers towards the tryline and almost breaks through.

Broncos ironman Parker desperately hangs onto Scott’s leg. He is brought down 12 metres out from the Brisbane tryline. There are 17 seconds left.

Hooker Jake Granville throws a sloppy pass to Cowboys talisman 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 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.

“There was actually an opportunity on our side (one play earlier), but given it was the last play it was always going to go to ‘JT’ (Thurston),” Morgan says.

“For me, once I saw JT going backwards, someone had to get behind him so I thought I’d try and get back there.

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

“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.

He slams the ball into the Homebush turf. Unbelievable. 16-all. Kick to come.

“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.

Feldt soars into the air in disbelief. The full-time siren is blaring in the background. Cowboys players charge in to mob him. In the coaching box, Cowboys mentor Paul Green and his assistants go berserk.

Broncos fullback Darius Boyd slumps to his knees and throws his hands to his head in dismay as Feldt touches down, 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.

From further in field, Parker, watching the play unfold alongside Thurston, 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.

“I had sleepless nights for months after that.

Amid 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.

It’s a finish that belongs in a Hollywood script.

SO CLOSE, YET SO FAR

Up until this moment, Thurston had 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.

“Under the NRL, rules, you have 90 seconds to go through a kick. JT took an eternity,” Parker recalls.

“I was going off at the referee saying, ‘This is a f***ing joke, he’s taking too long’.”

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 referee Gerard Sutton interrupts and tells him to bring it closer to the sideline.

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. Thurston roars into the night sky.

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

“That was my chance to end the game. I live for those moments. I was shattered when it hit the post. I didn’t know what would happen next.”

Morgan is the first on scene.

“That was because I remembered an under-20s game when ‘Feldty’ missed a kick 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. But luckily, like JT says, he doesn’t miss twice.”

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’.”

HUNT’S KICK-OFF FROM HELL

As the two teams try to mentally and physically reset for extra-time brutality, Parker has a mid-pitch discussion with retiring Broncos captain Justin Hodges.

“I’m thinking we can still win this. We’re still alive,” Parker says.

“I had a conversation with ‘Hodgo’ and he said what do we do if we win the toss?

“I said we can’t win it without the ball so let’s receive.”

As it turns out, Thurston correctly calls heads in a coin-toss with 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.

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.

“What do you say?” Parker says. “If you slow it down and you had the captain’s challenge, if you look at it on slo-mo, maybe it’s a knock back.

“But the call was made.”

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.

“I don’t blame Ben for what happened. To this day, I feel that way.

“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. He appears to be sobbing. 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.

“For me, it was bloody tough. I dropped the ball to lose the grand final.

“That will never be easy to accept.”

GOLDEN BOY JT

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 will 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 played a pivotal role in that set,” Taumalolo says.

“We found Jimmy, knowing how big and strong he was, he got tackled and got up as fast as he could and got a good play-the-ball for us.

“I rate that as one of the most under-rated moments of the grand final.”

Tamou plays the ball at rapid-fire speed. It’s a beauty. It gives Granville time to fire the ball to Thurston standing on the 20m line. The clock reads 82:16 when Thurston drops the ball to his right boot.

“Thursto is right in the pocket. I was two-and-half-metres offside,” Parker laughs.

Against the oncoming Broncos storm-troopers, Thurston holds his nerve.

Whack.

“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.

Ten years later Brisbane’s class of 2025 run out to face the Cowboys in a new epoch under coach Michael Maguire, hellbent on snapping Brisbane’s 19-year title drought.

“Leading into the game, there was this groundswell of support for ‘Thursto’ to win the premiership for North Queensland, which to me was bulls***, because he had won one before at the Bulldogs,” Parker said.

“I kept thinking, “What the f**k for?

“Why does he deserve a comp more than any of us?’

“Thursto did the ugliest drop kick you have ever, it was low and ugly dropping out of his hands, but it went over and that was the end for us.

“I was gutted. Shattered in that moment.

“But I remembered 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.”

THE LEGACY

The 2015 premiership arrived 20 years after the Cowboys came to life in Townsville.

It was 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.

“I am still filthy about that game. I think about it always. Always. There are heaps of things I could have, should have … I don’t know if I can let it go. I try to, but it just keeps coming back.

“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 back for a second stint 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 was 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 made 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.”

The XXXX derbies have taken on extra meaning since the death of two great Queenslanders, former Cowboys coach Green and Origin firebrand Carl Webb.

The Cowboys and Broncos clubs were left devastated by the shock passing of Green, who took his own life in August 2022.

In December the following year, Webb, who played for both clubs, lost his battle with Motor Neurone Disease.

On Friday night, Broncos and Cowboys players will play for the Carl Webb Medal, their blood rivalry not only built on the epic 2015 grand final, but the bonds of salt-of-the-earth football men such as ‘Charlie’ and ‘Greeny’.

“It’s cool to have a moment like that now. It’s been 10 years which is pretty crazy,” Morgan says.

Taumalolo adds: “For myself, it meant a lot because you know how rugby league is perceived here in North Queensland, it’s almost like a religion.

“For all of the fans support, to put it on the line in one game and to win, it meant a lot.

“Not many players will get to win a premiership in their career and I’m lucky enough to win one with this club, so that holds a special place in my heart.”