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The Wests Tigers have unleashed the equal-best first half in their history, beating North Queensland 36-20 to move provisionally into the NRL's top eight.
The Wests Tigers have turned in the equal-best first half in the NRL club's history in a 36-20 hammering of North Queensland.
At Campbelltown Stadium, the Tigers ran in six first-half tries on Saturday evening to lead 34-0 at the break before surviving a brief second-half scare.
Hooker Harry Grant was superb, setting up two of them, while Luke Brooks also had two assists and David Nofoaluma excelled.
The Cowboys hit back with three tries in seven minutes after the break, but were quickly put out of the contest when Moses Mbye kicked a penalty goal to seal the game.
Grant's performance reminded Tigers fans how lucky they had been to pick him up for this season on loan from Melbourne. But the Storm are insistent he will return to them in 2021.
"We've got him for this year and we understood that when we first went through it," coach Michael Maguire said.
"We'll just keep playing game by game and watch Harry grow.
"Our biggest focus is the now and what we are doing this year. What happens down the track will work itself out."
The win momentarily moved the Tigers into the top eight but it was costly.
Alex Twal looks like being out for a month with a medial injury and Zane Musgrove's foot issue puts him in doubt for next week's match against Canterbury. Winger Robert Jennings suffered a hamstring injury while scoring a try.
The Cowboys, missing Valentine Holmes, Michael Morgan and Jordan McLean, were poor from the outset on a worrying night for coach Paul Green.
Jason Taumalolo fumbled the ball on their first set of six, summing up how the rest of their evening would play out.
Musgrove crossed from the next set, giving the Tigers one of two soft tries through the middle with Josh Aloiai scoring the other.
The Tigers targeted former teammate Esan Marsters, with three of their tries coming down that channel.
The pick of them came via a long David Nofoaluma cut-out which put Mbye past the Cowboys' centre, before he found Luke Brooks inside him to cross.
The points equalled their first-half mark from round 14 in 2004 when they also led the Warriors 34-0.
The Tigers' defence was equally impressive in the first half.
Incredibly, the Cowboys had more than double the amount of play-the-balls on the Tigers' tryline than the hosts in the opening term.
Fatigue appeared to show after the break when they conceded three tries from the 53rd minute.
Scott Drinkwater had the Cowboys first from a 90-metre intercept off a Josh Reynolds pass, before Kyle Feldt collected a Jake Clifford cross-field kick.
Feldt had his second with 20 minutes to go when Drinkwater skipped across field, and allowed him to shrug off Brooks and score before Marsters also crossed late.
The Cowboys have conceded 89 points in their past three games, with matches against top-eight teams for each of the next six weeks.
"It's no excuse for the first half but there are some young guys who are learning what it's like to play NRL," Green said.
"We just didn't handle moments in the first half ... We need a bit more resilience there."