The Roosters have gone down to the Cowboys 34-16 on a humid Thursday night in Townsville.
The Cowboys were hot in the early stages, scoring the first try of the match and looking the goods in attack.
They would go on to score the next two tries of the game, both directly between the uprights to give themselves a comfortable 18 point in the opening twenty minutes.
The Roosters needed a spark and would get one, when Reuben Porter stormed his way over on the right hand side.
Though the defence had tightened up, there were no more points and the Roosters went into the sheds trailing by more than two converted tries at half time.
It wasn't an ideal start to the second half for the Roosters, with Cody Grills jumping on a loose ball for the Cowboys to make it a healthy lead.
That lead grew minutes later when Gideon Gela-Mosby took a grubber while defending his goal-line and sprinted the length of the field for the Cowboys.
It was shaping up as an ugly game for the Roosters, who had won their first two games of the year convincingly.
They would concede their next try just minutes later when Enari Tuala went over for the Cowboys to make it a 30 point lead with 25 minutes remaining.
Shaquai Mitchell barged over for the Roosters in the final 15 minutes, but it would do nothing more than make the scoreboard look more respectable.
The highlight of the game came at the final buzzer when Jesse Marschke chipped to himself, offloaded to Ryan King, who then passed to Bernard Lewis to go over in the corner.
