{"id":657898,"date":"2026-05-08T14:37:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/657898\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T14:37:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T14:37:17","slug":"moses-strikes-gold-dearden-suffers-injury-in-thriller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/657898\/","title":{"rendered":"Moses strikes gold, Dearden suffers injury in thriller"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mitch Moses has stepped up in Parramatta’s moment of need to consign a wasteful North Queensland to a 33-30 golden-point defeat.<\/p>\n

Adding more pain to the Cowboys and Queensland, halfback Tom Dearden injured his ankle in a tackle and will undergo scans on Saturday, just weeks before State of Origin kicks off on May 27.<\/p>\n

On a night when Jason Taumalolo became the most-capped Cowboy (295 games), the Eels upstaged the NRL premiership winners’ milestone at Queensland Country Bank Stadium on Friday.<\/p>\n

\"Taumalolo\"<\/p>\n

Jason Taumalolo became the most capped Cowboy but his night ended in disappointment. (PR IMAGE PHOTO)<\/p>\n

Leading by eight points with less than 10 minutes remaining, the Cowboys were in the box seat to earn their seventh victory in eight games.<\/p>\n

But Parramatta flicked a switch as Jordan Samrani crossed in the 75th minute, before Moses orchestrated a try for Joash Papalii to level the scores.<\/p>\n

Moses missed the conversion attempt and then a field goal to seal victory.<\/p>\n

But with the game going into golden point, the halfback kept his cool to slot the winning field goal, while a penalty for pressuring the kicker was handed to Scott Drinkwater, and the Eels secured another two points.<\/p>\n

“I probably should have finished it in time. I felt pretty confident kicking that one from the sideline,” Moses said.<\/p>\n

“But just the effort that our young boys showed, just the fight to stay in it and come up with some big plays at the end of the game … was really good to see.”<\/p>\n

Victory came as Parramatta’s player shortage escalated with hooker Ryley Smith (sternum), centre Will Penisini (osteitis pubis), and Jonah Pezet (suspension) all out after the last round. <\/p>\n

But North Queensland coughed up a mammoth 17 errors to keep the door ajar for the Eels, and the visitors surged to claim their second win in seven games.<\/p>\n

\"Tom<\/p>\n

Tom Dearden was brilliant for the Cowboys, before limping from the field. (PR IMAGE PHOTO)<\/p>\n

Not only will the Cowboys have to wait on Dearden, but Soni Luke also left the field early with a knee injury after it buckled under a tackle from prop Junior Paulo.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Dearden was inspirational, assisting three tries, while hooker Reed Mahoney made a game-high 47 tackles.<\/p>\n

“We showed a lack of respect to our most capped player. We showed a lack of respect to our captain with eight minutes to go who was trying to push passes when he’s on one leg,” coach Todd Payten said.<\/p>\n

\"Reed<\/p>\n

North Queensland hooker Reed Mahoney made a game-high 47 tackles. (PR IMAGE PHOTO)<\/p>\n

“I’m angry right at the minute … We found several ways to lose.”<\/p>\n

Both teams went tit for tat in the first half as Brian Kelly and Tallyn Da Silva crossed for Parramatta, while second-rower Heilum Luki and the newly re-signed Jake Clifford scored for the Cowboys.<\/p>\n

Trailing 12-10 at halftime, Josh Addo-Carr reinstalled the Eels advantage before some silky skills from Jaxon Purdue, and Mahoney helped North Queensland take the lead.<\/p>\n

\"There<\/p>\n

There was no stopping Josh Addo-Carr, who scored two tries in the Eels’ electrifying victory. (PR IMAGE PHOTO)<\/p>\n

Addo-Carr crossed for his second when he picked off a Dearden pass, but Tom Chester (228 metres) secured a much-deserved four-pointer to inch the Cowboys ahead in the 68th minute.<\/p>\n

Samrani stormed over before the centre assisted Papalii to level scores in the 77th minute.<\/p>\n

Clifford thought he had notched the game-winning field goal, but it was touched before Moses’ attempt was charged down, sending the match into golden point.<\/p>\n

The Parramatta halfback stayed composed to guide home the match-clinching field goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitch Moses has stepped up in Parramatta’s moment of need to consign a wasteful North Queensland to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,30241,37304,39262,318052,761,762,26673,158,16390,7675,85,34775,776],"class_list":["post-657898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-eels","tag-golden-point","tag-jason-taumalolo","tag-joash-papalii","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-north-queensland","tag-nrl","tag-parramatta","tag-reed-mahoney","tag-sports","tag-the-cowboys","tag-tom-dearden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}