Cowboys fail to live up to the pre-season hype TIME TO FIRE: Johnathan Thurston and the Cowboys must soon find form if they are to figure in the finals. Source: Townsville Bulletin THE North Queensland Cowboys are a mystery to me. I think the Cowboys are a mystery to every league fan right now. It is incredibly hard to pinpoint exactly what is going wrong and why they've struggled so much at times this season. At the start of the season we all thought they would be premiership contenders, that this was their big chance to challenge the best teams in the competition, but so far they haven't delivered on that potential. I'm not going to say they can't get to where they want to be, but after 10 rounds of the NRL season they would want to start cracking very soon. With the likes of Johnathan Thurston, Matt Bowen and their forward pack you would think the Cowboys would be much higher on the ladder. Next week they enter the Origin season where they could lose up to five players in Thurston, Matt Scott, James Tamou, Brent Tate and possibly Tariq Sims. For the next eight weeks these guys will be coming in and out of the side and then they will have to battle the rep season fatigue that inevitably follows what is shaping as another enormous State of Origin series. Some people have been pointing the finger at Thurston, but I think he has been put under pressure by a team that is not dominating in the forwards like they did in 2012. I don't know whether it is the changes at hooker or whether there has been a tweak in the game plan, but on paper this Cowboys team should be beating sides comprehensively. I think the main reasons are losing their No.9, having some of their forwards struggling and the constant changing of halfbacks. Everybody has huge raps on Tariq Sims and Jason Taumalolo, but both have spent time in the Intrust Super Cup this year. There are guys in the team we thought were going to kick on that are probably a little bit quiet this year. If you told me at the start of the season the Cowboys would score the third-fewest points of any team this year I would have laughed. The Cowboys have always scored points, even when losing. It's hard to be too critical of their performance last week. The Roosters are setting an incredible defensive benchmark and the Cowboys had their chances. They're not far off, but you can't be unlucky every week. It can all click for them on Friday night at Leichhardt against a Wests Tigers team that also might not be far away from clicking. I thought Benji Marshall tried really hard last week and if he keeps on trying like that every week it's not going to be long before he turns it all around. Remember, nothing brings out Benji's best football like playing in front of the Leichhardt fans. This is a hugely important game for the Cowboys. They need a win to enter the Origin period, during which they will play the Titans (away) and Manly (home) without their rep stars. It's been a difficult first few months of the season for the Cowboys. They've had a lot of interstate travel and losing to the top two teams in the past fortnight is not the end of the world. They play six of their last eight games at home so the Cowboys have a favourable draw to make a charge in the run to the finals. But they can't afford to drop any further off the pace of the top four if they want to be a contender this year.