Round 22 of the NRL season kicks off on Thursday night with North Queensland hosting the Sydney Roosters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cowboys will be looking to secure their top eight spot while the Tricolours will be fighting to stay in the hunt for the minor premiership.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Todd Payten’s side pulled off a big upset against the Roosters earlier this year and will be looking to repeat the dose on home soil.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Follow the live blog below, keep up to date with all the latest stats in our ScoreCentre<\/a>, and tune in to our live radio coverage<\/a>.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:29pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:29pm<\/p>\n UpdateThu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:43pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:43pm<\/p>\n Halftime: Roosters 48 lead Cowboys 6<\/p>\n They might have another! Walker puts up a bomb, the Cowboys can’t field it, it falls for Butcher who has Toia and he finds Walker to score!<\/p>\n The Bunker doesn’t like it though, and Foketi is penalised for offside. That cost them a slice of history but on the whole a pretty good half!<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:40pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:40pm<\/p>\n 38′ Tedesco gets another to equal all time recordn<\/p>\n Oh man, this is beyond ugly.<\/p>\n Toia brushes through some appalling defence around halfway, he has Tedesco in support and the skipper gets his second.<\/p>\n If Walker can convert it will equal the record for most points ever scored in the first half of a first grade match….and he nails it!<\/p>\n Roosters lead 48-6! Holy God!<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:37pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:37pm<\/p>\n 36′ Roosters score 40 in the first half<\/p>\n A Roosters penalty puts them on the attack, they take it left on the last, strip the Cowboys for numbers easily and Talau is over in the corner for their seventh try of the first half!<\/p>\n They’re going to go at a point a minute for the first half – at least! Walker from touch….of course he kicks it! Roosters lead 42-6.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:33pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:33pm<\/p>\n 32′ Marky Mark breaks the drought<\/p>\n It’s another one for the Roosters – the Cowboys run it right, Laybutt goes for a tip on to Taulagi, Nawaqanitawase tips it up for the intercept and fends off Drinkwater to go 50 metres to score!<\/p>\n That’s his first try after four matches without getting on the scoresheet. Once Walker converts it’s 36-6 to the Roosters.<\/p>\n What a disaster for the Cowboys.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:27pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:27pm<\/p>\n 29′ Foketi scores a solo stunner<\/p>\n This is a smash-up. Walker hits Foketi short around halfway, he’s in the clear and he sells Drinkwater a big dummy to score a brilliant try! Very athletic stuff from the young backrower.<\/p>\n Walker converts and it’s 30-6, the Roosters are keeping up with the clock.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:25pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:25pm<\/p>\n 28′ Cowboys denied a try<\/p>\n Drinkwater hoists up a kick, Nawaqanitawase loses it and it falls perfectly for Taulagi to score an easy and sorely needed try!<\/p>\n But Klein doesn’t like it, we go to the Bunker and they rule that Laybutt touched it first.<\/p>\n Roosters ball.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:23pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:23pm<\/p>\n 26′ Walker gets his second<\/p>\n The Roosters are rolling now. A penalty puts them back on the attack and on the last tackle Walker steps off his left foot through some feeble defence to score under the posts.<\/p>\n That’s his second try of the night and once he converts it’s 24-6 Roosters.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:14pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:14pm<\/p>\n 20′ Two in two minutes for Tricolours<\/p>\n Cherry-Evans nails a 40\/20 and the Roosters are on the attack again.<\/p>\n Tedesco probes across the field, he pokes a kick in and Savala is there first to score their third try of the night.<\/p>\n Geez, wasn’t much on there and in the blink of an eye, once Walker converts, it’s 18-6 Roosters.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:11pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:11pm<\/p>\n 15′ Walker goes over for Roosters’ second<\/p>\n Again the Roosters pick the Cowboys apart through the middle, Walker hits inside Tedesco with a nice inside ball and backs up to get the ball back and score.<\/p>\n Crafty stuff from the halfback and once he converts his own try it’s 12-6 Roosters.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:06pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:06pm<\/p>\n 13′ Cowboys reply through Burns<\/p>\n Back to back penalties put the Cowboys on the attack and give them a fresh set in the red zone.<\/p>\n They sweep right, Purdue digs right into the line and tries to fire a pass to Burns, Talau gets a hand to it, it falls for Burns anyway and the winger is over in the corner!<\/p>\n Drinkwater converts from out wide and it’s 6-all. Nice fightback from North Queensland.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:01pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 8:01pm<\/p>\n 8′ Drinkwater spared a howler<\/p>\n After the Cowboys wrap up Wong on the last tackle Laybutt plays the ball and Drinkwater isn’t paying attention!<\/p>\n Wong goes to dive on the ball but he knocks it on! Blushes dodged by the Cowboys, who have gotten off to a very slow start.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:56pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:56pm<\/p>\n 3′ Roosters off to ripper start<\/p>\n Radley pulls through some soft defence in the middle of the field and slips a beautiful offload to Robson to put him away and Tedesco is in support to score.<\/p>\n Outstanding start for the Chooks and once Walker converts it’s 6-0 Roosters.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:53pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:53pm<\/p>\n And away we go<\/p>\n Cowboys kick us off, running right to left.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:50pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:50pm<\/p>\n Kick-off imminent<\/p>\n Reuben Cotter and Connor Watson lead the teams out with the Cowboys wearing an strip commemorating Indigenous round.<\/p>\n We’ll have a smoking ceremony, a welcome to country and then the game will get underway.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:23pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:23pm<\/p>\n Last time they met<\/p>\n It was a good few months ago now but here’s the good oil from the last time these two teams met. One of a number of strong Cowboys this year – most of which have come without Tom Dearden, funnily enough.<\/p>\n Can they give us a sequel tonight? Or will the Chooks win their sixth straight?<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:12pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:12pm<\/p>\n Final teams: Cowboys vs Roosters<\/p>\n No changes for North Queensland – a reminder, they’re still without Tom Dearden, so Jaxon Purdue is at halfback and Zac Laybutt is in at centre.<\/p>\n Just the one switch for the Roosters with Spencer Leniu dropping back to the bench and Salesi Foketi starting at prop. Might be a chance that Foketi is actually on an edge with Nat Butcher pushing to prop, we’ll keep an eye out.<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:11pm<\/p>\n Thu 30 Jul 2026 at 7:11pm<\/p>\n Welcome to the ABC’s NRL live blog<\/p>\n Hey sports fans, time for some footy.<\/p>\n Tonight we’ve got North Queensland vs the Roosters in an interesting clash between a top four certainty and a top eight contender.<\/p>\n Should be plenty of points a bit of fun.<\/p>\n Kick back, relax and let’s have some fun out there tonight.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Round 22 of the NRL season kicks off on Thursday night with North Queensland hosting the Sydney Roosters.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4170,4292,1406,35926,23376,3770,4553,247],"class_list":["post-61673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-cowboys","tag-live-blog","tag-nrl","tag-nrl-finals","tag-roosters","tag-rugby-league","tag-season","tag-sydney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}