Staring down the barrel of six straight defeats, the North Queensland Cowboys look anything like a side down on confidence following their 26-14 win over the Gold Coast Titans.
While the Cowboys weren't stellar by any stretch of the imagination, everything they did was with energy, enthusiasm and a sense of teamwork; whether it was patting each other on the back after forcing an error or packing scrums as quickly as possible, every player was in the huddle.
It proved to be the difference between the two sides in a game where both were barely above 70 per cent completion rate and gave away more than 10 penalties each.
"We will certainly get a lot of confidence out of that, which has probably been the issue I suppose," coach Paul Green said.
"The first win was never going to be our best ever game, but I'm not saying tonight was too bad either, there was just a couple of patches where we turned the ball over.
"When we did have those errors we were doing it with intent and plenty of energy and urgency which probably hasn't been there the past few weeks."
Match highlights: Cowboys v Titans – Round 7, 2018
The Cowboys' attitude showed as the game progressed, with individual players, and the team as a whole, coming out of their shell to play some ad-lib footy, as well as the structures the Cowboys are renowned for.
"You've got to be resilient no matter what's happening, you've got to stick together as a team and to their credit throughout this last period...one thing we have done is stuck together as a club," Green said.
"I'm proud of that and I thought that was evident in how we played."
The individual performance of Jake Granville was dynamic, with the hooker showing his speed from dummy-half for the first time in 2018 to great effect.
"They got some confidence and we saw some of the stuff that individuals are capable of and it was really good to see, they got into the game and we saw the real Cowboys."
