North Queensland has moved into outright second place with a controversial 27-26 win over the last-placed Tigers, who scored two tries in the final five minutes to lead by a point when the siren sounded in Townsville.
The second-placed Cowboys seemed to have victory sewn up when a Valentine Holmes field goal gave them a seven-point lead with six minutes left, but Brent Naden and Starford To'a touched down in the final five to give the Tigers a 26-25 lead.
As the clock ticked down, Adam Doueihi hit the post with his conversion attempt, giving the Cowboys one chance to regather the kick-off and pull off a miracle.
As it happened, they did not regather the kick-off with one second left, but a captain's challenge found an escort by Asu Kepaoa as fullback Daine Laurie made the catch.
Kepaoa appeared to be running towards the ball, but bunker official Ashley Klein said the Tigers centre ran sideways into the path of Kyle Feldt.
Former Penrith halfback Greg Alexander in Fox Sports commentary labelled the decision was "an absolute shocker", adding Klein had made some "strange" decisions throughout the game.
Holmes slotted the ensuing penalty goal well after the clock hit zero.
While the ruling itself was questionable all on its own, commentators wondered how the Cowboys were allowed to challenge the on-field ruling despite there being no stoppage in play, aside from the final siren.
Cowboys coach Todd Payten admitted to ABC Sport that his side was lucky to get away with the victory.
"We got looked upon favourably with that last call," he said.
With 14 spots on the ladder separating the teams, North Queensland were heavily favoured going into the game and confirmed that favouritism when Tom Dearden crossed in their first set, but the Tigers refused to go away.
Naden, Fa'amanu Brown and Kepaoa scored to give the last-placed Sydneysiders a shock 16-6 lead, before the home side reasserted their dominance after the break, when the Tigers lost Ken Maumalo for 10 minutes over a shoulder charge.
A Holmes four-pointer and a double for Jeremiah Nanai put the Cows up 24-18 with 10 minutes left, which moved beyond a converted try when Holmes completed a slick field-goal play with six-and-a-half minutes left.
With the local fans in raptures, former Cowboy and 300-gamer James Tamou regathered the short kick-off, with a neat cut-out pass from Laurie putting Naden over out wide soon after.
Laurie also made the crucial line break 50 metres from home and threw the final pass for To'a to score in the 78th minute, with Doueihi letting as much time as possible run off the clock as he lined up his conversion.
The clocked stopped as he approached the ball with five seconds left, leaving the Cowboys one final chance, which they took gleefully, although controversially.
Dogs make steps away from wooden spoon
Canterbury have put on a show for prospective coach Cameron Ciraldo in a 36-26 NRL win over Gold Coast that also promises to intensify pressure on Titans boss Justin Holbrook.
Speculation premiership-winning Penrith assistant Ciraldo could join the Bulldogs came to a head this week when he was photographed lunching with a club sponsor.
Coaching the Bulldogs has become a much more attractive proposition now that interim coach Mick Potter has them playing the attacking brand of football that was on display in their fifth win of the season at CommBank Stadium.
Matt Burton and Josh Addo-Carr were the chief architects in Sunday's win, which looks to have consigned Gold Coast to a battle with Wests Tigers to avoid the wooden spoon.
It has been a huge fall from grace for the Titans, who were one pass away from making the second week of the finals last year.
Gold Coast have won only three times in 2022 but need to win twice more and rely on other teams losing to finish any higher than 15th.
They have lost their past eight games to put coach Holbrook's future at the club under the microscope.
"We just want to see more consistency over 80 minutes," Holbrook said.
"We were probably good for 60 minutes today but in patches we made some poor decisions that cost us."
The Titans conceded 26 points in the first half and could have been further behind had the bunker not denied three Bulldog tries.
Canterbury found it easy to break through the Titans' brittle edges and capitalise.
"We made massive in-roads in that area last week and then we fell back a bit today. That's something we've got to fix up," said Holbrook.
Three of the Bulldogs' four first-half tries came directly after line-breaks down the flanks and all three involved at least Burton or Addo-Carr.
Burton finished with two tries, two line breaks and a try assist, while Addo-Carr recorded his seventh career hat-trick and ran for 317 metres.
ABC/AAP
