Canterbury have held out the Cowboys in a low-scoring thriller in the Townsville rain.
Parramatta have edged Gold Coast 32-28 in the game of round one as both sides played out an exhilarating, high-octane contest.
Check out how all the games unfolded in our ScoreCentre.
Parramatta Eels edge Gold Coast Titans in thriller
Parramatta have prevailed in a thrilling shootout to beat Gold Coast 32-28 at Parramatta stadium on Sunday evening.
However, Gold Coast Titans coach Justin Holbrook claimed his side do not get the rub of the green from NRL referees and the bunker because they are not one of the game's big clubs.
Parramatta got the better of the penalty count (7-1) but Holbrook's main bone of contention was with the captain's challenges.
"I'm not here to take anything away from Parramatta, it's about us not being one of the big clubs and not getting anything," he said.
"If they're 50-50 calls make them 50-50s. I'm not asking for 7-1 [in the penalty count] and 3-0 [in the captain's challenges].
"It has a big bearing on the game. Make it 50-50 or get rid of the captain's challenge because it's never favoured us."
Captain Tino Fa'asuamaleaui was also penalised for an escort on Clint Gutherson which allowed Moses to put the Eels ahead late on.
Initially, Atkins did not blow for the call but after intervention awarded the home side a penalty.
"The referee cleared that and then gets the call and overturns it," Holbrook said.
"If you're going to do that, overturn them all. Go with the officials or don't go with them. You can't pick and choose."
After a stunning first half in which the two teams combined for nine tries in a wonderful display of attacking football, the second half was far tighter, with just Phillip Sami crossing for the Titans.
Having taken a four-point lead into the break, Mitchell Moses's three penalty goals kept the Eels ahead.
Parramatta teenager Sean Russell grabbed a first-half hat-trick but left the field with a rib injury.
Russell sustained the injury when scoring his third try in front of a crowd of 18,211, leaving coach Brad Arthur sweating over his wing depth.
With Blake Ferguson having left the club in the off-season and fellow wingers Maika Sivo and Haze Dunster out with long-term injuries, the Eels could be caught short on the flanks over the coming weeks.
Gold Coast's 21-year-old halfback, Toby Sexton, was impressive, setting up two tries after five-eighth AJ Brimson was ruled out with groin soreness prior to the game.
In a chaotic 48-point first half, Russell grabbed his first when he received a cut-out pass from Clint Gutherson on the left and ran over Titans fullback Jayden Campbell to score.
In an indication of the free scoring to come, the Eels winger grabbed his double just seven minutes into the contest when a Moses kick bounced off the posts and was hacked into his path.
Back-rower Shaun Lane increased the Eels' lead when he powered through a gap created by Moses after Sami opened the Titans' account down the left.
Gold Coast centre Brian Kelly followed Sami over the stripe on the same side of the field before Waqa Blake responded for the Eels and Russell added his third before succumbing to injury.
The Titans took advantage of the changes to the Eels' backline with Erin Clark crashing over from close range and Kelly adding his second as they went to half-time trailing the Eels 26-24
Sami pushed the Titans back in the lead straight after the interval, this time picking the ball out of Eels debutant Bailey Simonsson's hands and then mocking Gutherson as he celebrated.
After a try every five minutes in the first half, normal service was resumed with a gritty if error-strewn encounter taking place.
Moses nudged three penalties over in the last 15 minutes to take the game out of the Titans' reach.
Canterbury Bulldogs hold out North Queensland Cowboys in low-scoring contest
Canterbury overcame the odds to steal victory over North Queensland, beating the Cowboys 6-4 in a scrappy, error-strewn and down-to-the-wire NRL game in Townsville.
Trent Barrett's side flipped the script on a lacklustre opening 40 minutes to score the only try of the second half through Jayden Okunbor, who was the beneficiary of Jeremy Marshall-King's cut-out pass that was battered on by Braidon Burns to score in the corner in the 51st minute.
The Cowboys thought they had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with three minutes left when Coen Hess got to a high ball that found Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, who jinked to slide under the posts in torrential rain.
But the bunker official spotted the Cowboys fullback ahead of kicker Chad Townsend, with the Bulldogs holding on in the dying stages for a win to kick-start their 2022 campaign.
In a battle between the bottom-two placed teams of the 2021 season, the Cowboys took a four-point lead into the main break following Tom Gilbert's maiden NRL try in the 16th minute.
Tom Dearden exploited a shortside three-on-two inside his own half after Valentine Holmes' quick play-the-ball, dummying through before finding Murray Taulagi who lobbed to Gilbert to dive over.
They were soon back on the attack when Canterbury kicked off on the full, with sustained pressure forcing referee Ben Cummins to send Jack Hetherington to the bin after four consecutive 10-metre infringements.
Hetherington's sin-bin was the second time from as many trips to Townsville he's spent time on the sidelines, after being sent off for a high shot in last season's fixture.
With a man up, Gilbert was then inches from doubling his tally minutes later but scrambling Bulldogs defence held him up after a charging run close to the line.
The visitors finally had their crack at the Cowboys line to end the opening stanza, but handling errors cost them dearly as North Queensland's defence held strong.
Jake Averillo came close when he was held up and stripped of the ball by Tabuai-Fidow, but an exhausted Canterbury couldn't muster a point in the first half.
They found their way into the contest with ball retention in the second, holding on to win just their third game from their past 11 against North Queensland.
North Queensland had a late try ruled out for offside as Canterbury held on for a 6-4 victory in a sopping wet Townsville.
AAP/ABC
