Brisbane have consigned North Queensland to their 11th straight defeat with a commanding 32-18 victory over the struggling northern outfit at Dairy Farmers Stadium.

The Broncos rebounded from last weekend's shock loss to the Bulldogs with a devastating first half of football which saw the 2006 premiers race in five tries to nil, including a double to Sam Thaiday.

It was always going to be a tough ask for the depleted Cowboys side missing Johnathan Thurston, Matt Bowen, Carl Webb, Luke O'Donnell and Jacob Lillyman and the Broncos took full advantage racing out to a 26-0 halftime lead.

The Cowboys gave their home fans a glimmer of hope of a second half fightback with two converted tries in the space of five minutes to winger John Williams and prop Shane Tronc to cut the Broncos' lead back to 14.

The home side threatened to further shorten the deficit however a strong tackle from Joel Moon on Dayne Weston saved a certain try on the Broncos goal line.

Denan Kemp extinguished any hopes of a fairytale comeback for the beleaguered Cowboys when he crossed for his second try in the 64th minute only to see Michael Ennis further extend the lead with his fourth conversion for the night.

Hardworking lock Steve Southern ensured the home side went down fighting with a try in the 78th minute to minimise the damage.

Thaiday had a hand in three of the five first half tries throwing the final pass for rookie Kaine Manihera to open the scoring in the fifth minute before crossing the line for two of his own, his second just before halftime off a bust from Peter Wallace.

It was a tough night for North Queensland's back three with Ty Williams and John Williams committing errors close to their own line which led to Thaiday and Denan Kemp tries.

Darius Boyd inflicted further damage for the visitors scoring a try before halftime while the Cowboys best chance of the half came through a break to Mark Henry who beat several defenders down the sideline before Karmichael Hunt shut down an attempted offload.

In further bad news for the already injury ravaged Cowboys Ben Harris rolled an ankle and Ash Graham injured his shoulder.

Brisbane coach Wayne Bennett was scathing of his side's performance despite the winning score line.

"No, we were rubbish," Bennett said.

"We looked good when we ran on, I'm not worrying about them (Cowboys) we are going pretty ordinary."

Bennett was particularly critical of his side's second half where it invited the home side back into the contest.

"It wasn't even a case of scoring more points, they were a lot more disciplined in the second half and just making sure we didn't invite them back into the game.

"If you are playing well everything looks after itself and we are not playing well."

"We could be leading the comp right now and still be not capable of beating anyone that's really going to matter when the time comes."

North Queensland coach Ian Millward was left to lament an inept first half display.

"We got a bit more ball I think our completion rate in the second half was 68 percent and the first half it was a pretty ordinary 35 percent.

"You can't win any sort of game under that sort of circumstance.

"I was pretty disappointed with the amount of work we had to do and I am pretty disappointed with how softly we gave the ball up."

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