Titans pile on the points to leave Cowboys winless
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A near-unstoppable 80 minutes on the left edge from David Fifita has helped the Titans to a huge 44-8 win over the Cowboys at Queensland Country Bank Stadium on Sunday evening.
The Titans' left edge had a field day with Fifita alone accounting for a try, four offloads, 11 tackle busts and 178 run metres, with the loss of halfback Ash Taylor to a broken hand doing little to disrupt the form they discovered against Brisbane last week.
The loss of Cowboys captain Michael Morgan to his troublesome shoulder forced Todd Payten into a reshuffle, with Val Holmes into his preferred fullback position, Scott Drinkwater into the halves and Justin O'Neill called up at centre pushing Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow out to the wing.
While both Holmes and Drinkwater had a few nice moments in terms of their ball-playing, it was a night to forget for the home side as their pack was totally outmatched by the Titans big men and the playmakers had few opportunities to create.
Match: Cowboys v Titans
Round 3 -
home Team
Cowboys
14th Position
away Team
Titans
4th Position
Venue: Queensland Country Bank Stadium, Townsville
They also lost lock Reuben Cotter to a head knock in the 27th minute as the weekend's injury carnage continued into the final game.
The Titans put the game's opening kick-off out on the full but it was about the last thing that went wrong for them.
They easily repelled the early pressure and opened the scoring through AJ Brimson as the fullback chased through his own attacking grubber in the 10th minute.
Brimson held up a nice ball for a charging Phil Sami to burst through in the 23rd minute before Sami turned creator with some beautiful footwork to create a two-on-one and send Corey Thompson over in the 33rd.
Fifita continues his try-scoring form in 2021
Moeaki Fotuaika broke a 47-game try-scoring drought three minutes from oranges when he burst onto a Mitch Rein short ball under the sticks.
When Holmes spilled a bomb under pressure shortly before half time and Mitchell Dunn picked the ball up from an offside position, Fogarty had an easy short for his fourth two-pointer of the half and a 26-nil advantage at the break.
The Cowboys' only real opportunity of the first stanza came when Jake Clifford's leap at an attacking bomb beat Brimson but the halfback fumbled the put-down, forcing the Bunker to overturn the on-field try ruling.
A rare error from the Titans from a kick gave the Cowboys a full set early in the second half, with Drinkwater and O'Neill setting up Tabuai-Fidow to get the home side on the board.
Some nice passing from Drinkwater and Holmes earned Murray Tualagi a try in the 57th minute and the same combination looked to have created the young winger's second 10 minutes later but it was overruled for an obstruction.
Titans coach Justin Holbrook praised the completeness of the performance and explained the reshuffle in the forward pack.
Fotuaika joins the party for the Titans
"The boys played terrific tonight, it was a tremendous performance and we came away with a good win," he said.
"We're proud of how we played … To get the score line we got, I thought we had so many good performances which was great."
The decision to move Peachey into a starting role with Fotuaika dropping to the bench was more about the conditions but could be a regular feature moving forward, he added.
"The early (season) plan was to bring Peach on after 25 or 30 and leave him out there but the games have been too quick and he's had to then come off so obviously with it being hot and humid up here, I thought if I start him, I need him at the back end of games and he was tremendous for us," Holbrook said.
"The fact I put Mo back to the bench then he came on and he was phenomenal for us.
"The balance of the side worked really well. The whole forward pack worked really hard, Jaimin Joliffe worked really hard and Jarrod Wallace."
