Wests maintain winning start

The Wests Tigers have made it two wins from as many starts in 2008 after posting a 30-10 victory over the North Queensland Cowboys at Dairy Farmers Stadium on Saturday night.

Despite not enjoying as much possession as their opponents throughout the match, the Tigers produced an outstanding defensive showing to pick up a crucial away victory and move up to second place on the competition ladder.

Although superstar Benji Marshall was missing through injury and the Tigers were expected to struggle in the humid North Queensland conditions, they played well for the full 80 minutes and had winners all over the ground.

Tim Moltzen filled Marshall's shoes at the five-eighth position with aplomb and the experienced Robbie Farah directed his players around the park tremendously well all night.

The dynamic Cowboys' duo of Johnathan Thurston and Matt Bowen never really caught fire as the Cowboys made far too many handling errors in a poor home performance.

Ashley Graham gave the home side the perfect start, the centre crossing over out wide after some excellent lead-up play from Ben Harris, Carl Webb and Sione Faumuina.

From then on it was all the Tigers though, as Farah threw a dummy and scored under the posts to level the scores after half an hour.

Brett Hodgson duly converted the try and slotted a penalty goal shortly after to extend the Tigers' lead to four, before Bronson Harrison scored on the stroke of half-time after a mistake in the in-goal area from Graham.

When Hodgson made it a perfect 3-of-3 with his conversion, the Tigers' lead was out to 10 (14-4) and that is how the score remained when the teams headed to the sheds.

The Cowboys were back in the contest shortly after half-time when Thurston made a run following a scrum and the champion halfback found Harris with a lovely short ball, who then planted the ball down nearly straight in front.

Thurston converted the try to reduce the margin to four and when Harrison was sin-binned for 10 minutes after being cited for joining in a fracas late that involved Luke O'Donnell, the Cowboys had all the momentum.

But despite holding a numerical advantage and enjoying the majority of possession, the Cowboys struggled to complete their sets and were forced into mistake after mistake by a potent Tigers' defence.

Graham was placed on report for a late hit on Hodgson and Chris Lawrence stepped up to nail a penalty goal to restore a six-point advantage for the Tigers, before the visitors slammed on a further three tries to seal the two points.

Cowboys 10
Tries: Graham, Harris
Conversions: Thurston
Penalty goal:

Tigers 30
Tries: Farah, Harrison, Lawrence, Moltzen, Fulton
Conversions: Hodgson 2, Lawrence
Penalty goal: Hodgson, Lawrence

Sportal's NRL Player of the Year:
3 - Robbie Farah (Wests)
2 - Tim Moltzen (Wests)
1 - Chris Lawrence (Wests)