Dragons go down to Cowboys at WIN

The Dragons embarked on an early raid with Berry sprinting into the backfield off a misfired pass before the hosts swung it out right only for the final pass to be ruled forward.

The Red V were dealt a painful blow early with Francesca Goldthorp snuffing out an intercept as the home side looked destined to open the scoring.

The English international raced close to 80 metres downfield and wore a late Kasey Reh shot to score and open the visitors’ account.

The Dragons fashioned a response shortly after with Berry venturing down a short, left side and slithering her way to the line to nab a try in her milestone outing.

Jayme Millard stepped up to nail the conversion and tie things at six-apiece.

The clash’s back-and-forth opening persisted with the Cowboys finding their second of the afternoon their next set courtesy of a determined Emma Manzelmann effort out of dummy-half.

Lillian Yarrow muscled her way over for the Cowboys under the sticks off the back of a Dragons yardage error just moments later to push the visitors’ edge out to a dozen.

Berry’s sensational opening stanza continued soon after with the Dragons No.1 scooping up a Cowboys kick which had pulled up just shy of the dead ball line and slicing through the North Queensland’s jagged defensive line into space.

With the WIN Stadium Hill as her backdrop, Berry sprinted down the flank and into Cowboys territory before manufacturing a pass inside to a supporting Tori Shipton.

Shipton was dragged down just shy of the stripe, but Ella Koster took advantage of the space to dive over the following play despite illegal interference from an offside Cowboy.

It saw the visitors take an 18-10 advantage into the intermission despite Berry producing a 197-metre, six-tackle break effort in the opening 35.

The break did little to cool Berry down with Shenai Lendill showing off some superb footwork to help send her fullback through a yawning gap from inside her own half in the opening set of the second half.

Berry’s trademark pace was on full display as she burnt her opposite to dive over down the southern end of WIN Stadium.

Shipton threatened to strike again for the Red V shortly after out of dummy-half but had the ball dislodged from her grip short of the chalk.

The Dragons’ fightback ran out of steam however with the visitors surging further ahead courtesy of Krystal Blackwell who slipped through off the back of a nice piece of Dibb playmaking.

Alisha Foord found another for the Cowboys out of dummy-half 54 minutes in to push them out to a 32-14 advantage.

The visitors pulled off a sideline-to-sideline shift soon after with Rosie Kelly throwing the final pass to send Abigail Roache over in the northwestern corner.

Koster was taken from the field for a HIA with less than 10 minutes on the clock before the Cowboys extended their lead through Goldthorp who raced away down the right-hand touchline for her second of the afternoon to seal a strong victory for the visiting side.