Cowboys winger Gideon Mosby has set a try-scoring record that may never be beaten, scoring four tries in his side's 36-24 win over the Broncos' in their Holden Cup Qualifying Final on Saturday evening.
The first player to score more than 30 tries in a season in the National Youth Competition, Mosby's quartet of four-pointers against Brisbane took his tally for the year to 38, an astonishing 10 more than Ben Barba scored in the inaugural under-20s competition in 2008.
Mosby's magical display took some of the pain away from a number of serious injuries to both teams that will in particular affect the Broncos preparation for their sudden-death meeting with the Warriors next week.
The Cowboys lost Viliame Kikau (knee), Brandon Smith (neck) and David Munro (low-grade syndesmosis) during the course of the game but the Broncos were hit even harder.
Fullback Paul Byrnes tore his ACL in trying to prevent Mosby from scoring his fourth try of the night, centre Jordan Drew was sent for scans after the game on a knee injury and Junior Kangaroos representative Jayden Berrell picked up a shoulder injury.
Brisbane are already having to do without Ashley Taylor and Jayden Nikorima but coach Craig Hodges said they could take heart from the way they fought back from 30-12 down to get back to within six points late in the game.
"We can take a lot of confidence out of it. The fact that our edge defence and our middle defence was really good, we showed really good spirit to fight back and come back at them," Hodges said.
"There are a lot of really good things we can take out of it and a couple of things we got wrong we can take out of it too.
"We've got the Warriors with the way that has fallen and seven days to get ready for them and it's all or nothing now.
"That second chance has been used up. We didn't want to have to use it but we've had to and we're really looking forward to the Warriors."
While he reserved some special praise for Mosby, Cowboys coach Todd Payten was immensely proud of the way his team defended for the final 15 minutes of the game with only one fit player on the interchange bench.
"We've been able to defend our way to wins for most of the year and I thought we did that again today," Payten said.
"Fifteen minutes to go with 12 points in the game, we had a mountain of possession against us but we just hung tough so I'm really proud of that effort.
"Some of [Mosby's] tries tonight were world-class finishing. He's got some ability the kid.
"It's such a terrific story of where he's come from. He's one of those kids who looks at peace and happy when he's on the footy field. He just looks like he's having so much fun.
"The guys around him thrive off that as well. He's a bit of character in the group as well."
