The Cowboys did not drop a competition point for eight weeks, including two byes, as Scott Drinkwater cemented himself as the focal point of the team’s attack.

Penrith, Melbourne, South Sydney and Parramatta were among the teams to fall before the reinvigorated Cowboys.

Bookmakers slashed the club’s premiership odds to $9, having ballooned out to $151 after the 66-18 defeat to the Tigers.

A Sunday afternoon away game to Gold Coast was the chance to seal a seventh straight victory, the longest winning streak since the 2015 premiership season eight years ago.

By full-time the Cowboys had been left red-faced again, held to two tries in a 22-13 defeat against one of the competition’s worst defensive teams.

The team’s leadership dished up two familiar critiques: once again the opposition had run harder and tackled harder than a Cowboys outfit that prided itself on being the toughest team in the contest every week.

It was a mirror image of Payten’s assessment after the Tigers defeat and the start of a painful late-season spiral.

Valentine Holmes was hit with a three-week suspension for a dangerous tackle and an ill-fated decision to challenge the ban was laughed out of the NRL judiciary, rubbing the Kangaroos centre out for the remainder of the season.

Without Holmes the Cowboys defence was shown up again in a 30-16 derby defeat to Brisbane at home as the team had no answer defensively for the speed of Reece Walsh and the Broncos.

The two-game losing streak shifted the narrative around North Queensland.

The Cowboys had shown weakness and in the space of a fortnight had gone from hunter to hunted.

Coming off a bye round to prepare, North Queensland entered the Thursday night tussle with Cronulla - Jason Taumalolo’s milestone 250th - as favourite.

A win would return the team to the top eight with a fortnight remaining in the season.

There was everything to play for.

North Queensland hit the early lead 12-6 but were overrun as the Sharks surged home with 24 unanswered points in a hammer blow to the club’s season.

The Cowboys’ $1.70 chance at qualifying for the top eight plunged to $6 overnight as the rugby league world lost faith in Todd Payten’s men.

“Coming down the crunch parts of the season … in the end we had plenty of chances on their tryline and we didn’t execute well enough. I’m really disappointed,” Payten said.

“We didn’t defend our tryline well enough. We let in two pretty soft tries and another right at the end and they just moved faster than us, defensively.

“Our mindset has got to be to play through teams. We got a little bit sideways, a little more unstructured football can help us with an offload or two. We still need to play quick and we’re a really good team.

“Coming into this game we knew we needed to win two games to give ourselves a chance at playing finals and there is still two games left. I know how much talent we’ve got. When we get it consistently right set after set we’re a good team.

“We just need to keep believing in what we’re doing because there is so much talent in that room.”

North Queensland bounced back to hammer the Dolphins and keep their destiny in the Cowboys’ hands heading into the final week of the regular season.

Win and they were in.

What followed next shaped as the greatest disappointment of them all.