{"id":823282,"date":"2026-07-25T16:41:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T16:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823282\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T16:41:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T16:41:31","slug":"nrl-2026-brisbane-broncos-lose-to-north-queensland-cowboys-ending-finals-hopes-kotoni-staggs-jordan-riki-butcher-last-minute-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/823282\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL 2026: Brisbane Broncos lose to North Queensland Cowboys, ending finals hopes; Kotoni Staggs, Jordan Riki butcher last-minute play"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the moment Brisbane<\/a>\u2019s finals hopes went from life support to the grave.<\/p>\n

With a minute left on the clock in Saturday night\u2019s game and Brisbane trailing North Queensland<\/a> 18-10, the Broncos were on the Cowboys\u2019 try line and the equation facing them was simple.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A dejected Kotoni Staggs on Saturday night.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Score a try on the last tackle and keep alive their chances of victory in Townsville, or wave goodbye to their wretched premiership defence.<\/p>\n

For a brief moment, the play looked promising.<\/p>\n

The Broncos spread the ball from the left side of the field all the way to the right, where Kotoni Staggs<\/a> was met with a two-on-one overlap.<\/p>\n

All he had to do was draw Murray Taulagi and dish the ball to either Jordan Riki or Ben Hunt<\/a>, both of whom were unmarked on his outside.<\/p>\n

And although he did draw Taulagi, the pass he threw was grassed by Riki.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the story of their season, Brisbane,\u201d former Broncos hooker Michael Ennis<\/a> said on Fox League.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys held on to win 18-10 and kill off any remaining hope the Broncos had of making an improbable late-season charge to the finals.<\/p>\n

After losing to the Sharks in round 18<\/a> to drop their eighth game in a row, the Broncos had to win eight on the bounce to be any chance of scraping into the finals.<\/p>\n

They knocked off Penrith in Sydney<\/a> to clear the first hurdle, but stumbled at the second on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty shattered for the players and the staff because they\u2019re putting a hell of a lot of work in there at the moment,\u201d Broncos coach Michael Maguire<\/a> said in his post-game press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately tonight we left a lot out there, with a missed opportunity. I think in the first half we put ourselves across the line two or three times and weren\u2019t able to capitalise. Unfortunately, those things come back and get you later in the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to keep turning out with a positive mindset around the fact that depending on what happens will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gave a nod to some of his players departing at season\u2019s end: captain Adam Reynolds<\/a>, who was seated beside him in the press conference, as well as the South Sydney-bound Payne Haas<\/a> and Perth signing Gehamat Shibasaki.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got some pretty incredible people within our playing group that have got games left,\u201d Maguire said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a group I\u2019m really proud of them, and there\u2019s a lot of belief around who we are as a group, but it just hasn\u2019t been our time at this present moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Brisbane team that took down Penrith last week and lost to North Queensland on Saturday night was a polar opposite to the Broncos sides that lost eight games straight.<\/p>\n

Buoyed by the return of millions of dollars worth of stars, including Reynolds, Haas, Reece Walsh<\/a> and Patrick Carrigan<\/a>, they threatened Penrith and North Queensland in attack and were resolute in defence.<\/p>\n

In the 55th minute of the Townsville clash, Reynolds, Walsh and Mam combined to cut the deficit to 16-10, conversion included, with Haas being used as a decoy runner.<\/p>\n

It was a slick backline play deep in Cowboys territory that reawakened memories of the Broncos\u2019 blazing run to premiership glory last season<\/a>, when their stars were on song and their attacked clicked.<\/p>\n

But Brisbane, in spite of a glut of possession on North Queensland\u2019s line in the dying minutes, couldn\u2019t crack the Cowboys\u2019 defence again.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Cowboys\u2019 win strengthened their hold on eighth place on the ladder.<\/p>\n

Todd Payten<\/a>\u2019s side is one win ahead of the ninth-placed Bulldogs, who produced an upset victory over the Warriors<\/a> earlier on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was the moment Brisbane\u2019s finals hopes went from life support to the grave. With a minute left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-823282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823282","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=823282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}