They were well beaten by the North Queensland Cowboys, 26-6, at Townsville on Saturday night.

Somehow they were still in the contest until Hudson Young's sin-binning with 20 minutes to go.

The Cowboys scored once while Young was off and then twice more against a tiring Green Machine.

Jason Taumalolo dominated the middle of the field, running for 161 metres.

The Raiders were sloppy from the start, with their timing well off in attack.

They'd lost hooker Josh Hodgson (knee) and then halfback Brad Schneider (COVID-19) at the start of the week.

Both starting dummy half Tom Starling and halfback Matt Frawley struggled, with errors starving the Raiders of the ball.

Their outside backs also struggled under the high ball and they missed Nick Cotric's (quad) run.

He was a late withdrawal with Sebastian Kris returning from a week's isolation.

The Raiders will also wait on the match review committee after Charnze Nicoll-Klokstad was put on report for a high shot on Valentine Holmes.

Cowboys second-rower Tom Gilbert was also put on report for a crusher tackle on Semi Valemei.

The Cowboys also lost forward Mitch Dunn to a season-ending knee injury.

Raiders coach Ricky Stuart said errors and a lack of possession hurt them, although overall he was happy with their defensive effort - pointing to the Cowboys scoring mostly off kicks.

Stuart felt the change in the halves wasn't the issue.

"You've got to definitely not look at that as an excuse," he said.

"That's going to happen right throughout the season."

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Canberra invited the Cowboys to open the scoring with two errors inside their own defensive 20 metres - first Nicoll-Klokstad and then Corey Harawira-Naera dropping balls.

Cowboys winger Murray Taulagi took advantage with a fantastic finish in the corner after just seven minutes.

They're attack was disjointed early, with halfback Matt Frawley throwing an intercept pass on the fifth tackle - the Green Machine failing to take advantage of a Jack Wighton 40-20.

Harawira-Naera made up for his earlier error - although to be fair it was Starling's pass that was at fault - to produce a powerful run.

He carried four Cowboys across the line - who all then went to sleep to allow him to put the ball down.

Taulagi was in everything for the home side and was almost in again off the back of a simple scrum play to go around the Raiders defence - only to step on the line in the process of putting the ball down.

He then put a bell ringer on Frawley - literally knocking him out of the boots in the process.

The Cowboys held a narrow 8-6 lead at half-time.

Canberra's forwards continued to struggle to do that - go forward - with Taumalolo leading the way.

Cowboys fullback Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow outjumped Nicoll-Klokstad to score off a Chad Townsend kick before Young was sent to the sin bin.

Kyle Feldt got on the end of a fortunate Peta Hiku kick at a bouncing ball to cross in the corner just seconds before Young returned.

Then Cowboys second-rower Jeremiah Nanai got on the end of a Tom Dearden kick to complete the win.

Raiders co-captain Elliott Whitehead said they'd speak to Young about his discipline.

"It was [draining being a man down], after giving them all the momentum and then to lose a man it was pretty disappointing," he said.

"Huddo knows better than that and we'll speak to him, and we'll move on from that."

The Raiders now have a week to turn it around when they host the Gold Coast Titans at Canberra Stadium next Saturday.

AT A GLANCE

NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS 26 (Murray Taulagi, Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, Kyle Feldt, Jeremiah Nanai tries; Valentine Holmes 5 goals) bt CANBERRA RAIDERS 6 (Corey Harawira-Naera try; Harawira-Naera goal) at Townsville. Referee: Grant Atkins.