{"id":833382,"date":"2026-07-30T12:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/833382\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T12:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T12:16:13","slug":"nrl-news-2026-sydney-roosters-half-time-points-record-against-north-queensland-cowboys-james-tedesco-sam-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/833382\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL news 2026: Sydney Roosters half-time points record against North Queensland Cowboys; James Tedesco; Sam Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Roosters<\/a> have equalled the NRL record for most points by half-time after putting 48 past the Cowboys<\/a> in a 40-minute Townsville boilover. <\/p>\n

Newcastle had set the record in 2003 which was ironically against the Cowboys. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

James Tedesco celebrates the opening try against the Cowboys on Thursday.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Roosters started the rout with a third minute try to James Tedesco<\/a> before North Queensland struck back through Braidon Burns to make it 6-6.<\/p>\n

But from there Sam Walker<\/a> and Tedesco inspired the Roosters to first half dominance. <\/p>\n

Walker grabbed himself a double as did Tedesco while Hugo Savala, Salesi Foketi, Mark Nawaqanitawase and Tommy Talau scored too. The Roosters almost broke the record on half-time too when Walker crossed against, but the try was ruled out for offside. The score at half-time was 48-6<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Walker had one try assist while Tedesco finished the first half with three. <\/p>\n

North Queensland came into the match off the back of beating Brisbane and knocking them out of the finals race. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are excuses, emotionally last Saturday they had a huge game against the Broncos, Townsville was buzzing,\u201d Andrew Johns said on Nine\u2019s coverage. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly hard on short turnarounds to back up, but this is totally unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tedesco was put on ice at half-time and replaced by Cody Ramsey. <\/p>\n

Nawaqanitawase then scored immediately after the break when Murray Taulagi dropped a high kick. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is beyond soft and we\u2019re not talking about mugs here, Murray Taulagi has played Origin … totally unacceptable. Go and defend in the middle for a few sets Murray, you won\u2019t drop any more,\u201d Johns said.<\/p>\n

After Taulagi\u2019s error, the try-scoring flurry didn\u2019t stop there with the Roosters finishing 82-12 winners. <\/p>\n

The result made it the first time since 1935 that a team has scored 80 points in a game. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sam Walker scores for the Roosters on Thursday.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would be highly embarrassing, particularly when playing at home … this is as embarrassing as it gets,\u201d Cameron Smith said of the Cowboys.<\/p>\n

Overall, the Roosters finished with 14 tries as Nawaqanitawase and Walker finished with hat-tricks. <\/p>\n

With 36 points, Walker matched the individual record for most points in a game in the NRL era. Terry Campese and Ryan Papenhuyzen are the other two players to have achieved that total. <\/p>\n

Cowboys star Reuben Cotter spoke at full-time and his comments suggested Todd Payten\u2019s half-time message didn\u2019t sink. <\/p>\n

\u201cToddy said we had a choice to make, to go out there and show some action and show some care for the jersey and not let it get more embarrassing, which it did,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not much to say really.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Roosters have equalled the NRL record for most points by half-time after putting 48 past the Cowboys…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-833382","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\/833382","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=833382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}