On their long journey back from North Queensland yesterday, the Warriors must have wondered quite how they managed to lose this game.
They lost 28-24 to the Cowboys, after holding the lead for almost the whole match.
They led for 78 minutes, before Jake Granville dived over from close range to take the two points.
It was the perfect result for Johnathan Thurston, who celebrated his 250th NRL game with an unlikely victory.
The Warriors will be bitterly disappointed they allowed Granville to score twice in the last 10 minutes from dummy half. It's the sort of thing that shouldn't happen once and never happens twice, especially with the match on the line.
It's a performance that's hard to sum up. The Warriors played some superb attacking football and exhibited plenty of commitment on defence, against a team that was coming up off a comprehensive victory over the Rabbitohs.
But - and this is the big ''but'' - they could not stop making errors. How good could this team be when they can iron the mistakes out of their game?
Some are down to inexperience, as the otherwise impressive Solomone Kata dropped the ball over the try line, and Tui Lolohea spilt a huge Thurston bomb under his own goal posts. Other were less excusable and at least three of the errors led directly to Cowboys tries.
It continued a pattern of previous weeks, where the Warriors have averaged considerably more mistakes than their opposition. Sometimes they have got away with it but a 66% completion rate and a 12 5 error count proved fatal on Saturday night.
It was a curious first half. In front of a crowd ready to celebrate Thurston's milestone, the Warriors rocketed to a 12 0 lead within the first nine minutes.
They took the lead through Konrad Hurrell, who scored his first try of the season after the visitors regathered an innocuous Shaun Johnson kick.
Jonathan Wright extended their advantage soon afterwards, after an impressive set play with Lolohea changing the direction of attack and Johnson creating space for the winger.
The Warriors had all the early momentum, aided by the Cowboys putting consecutive kick offs over the dead ball line.
The home side was always going to get back in the game but it was helped by the Warriors, who barely completed a set in the 20 minutes before halftime.
Before Saturday night, the second quarter had been their best period - they had scored more points during that time than any other NRL team - but in Townsville it became their worst.
They delivered a stream of handling errors to give the Cowboys territory, and also managed a kick out on the full.
The Cowboys capitalised, with tries to Jake Granville and Kane Linnett. A long range Hurrell break, somewhat against the run of play, led to a Solomone Kata try on the stroke of halftime.
The Warriors continued their mix of sweet and sour in the second half. Vatuvei crossed for his 141st career try, edging ahead of Nigel Vagana to become the leading New Zealand try scorer in the NRL.
The veteran winger was set up by a superb ball from Thomas Leuluai, who drew the defence before bringing the ''Beast'' thundering on to the ball. But costly drops at both ends of the field - by Kata on attack and Lolohea on defence - kept the Cowboys in the game before Granville's late strikes.
By Michael Burgess.
NRL
The scores
Cowboys 28
Jake Granville 3, Kane Linnett, Lachlan Coote tries; Johnathan Thurston 4 goals
Warriors 24
Konrad Hurrell, Jonathan Wright, Solomone Kata, Manu Vatuvei tries; Shaun Johnson 4 goals
Halftime: Warriors 16-10.
