NORTH QUEENSLAND fans, count your lucky stars - your master No.7 could have quite easily been lost to the Cowboys.

Cast your minds back to 2010, and Johnathan Thurston’s future in Townsville was under threat after he was arrested for an alleged boozy night out at Brisbane’s Treasury Casino.

At the time the Cowboys were considering sacking him as skipper but, as his manager Sam Ayoub reveals, it could’ve been much worse if not for Phil Gould.

“The Cowboys were on the verge of punting Johnathan,” recalls Ayoub, who had to make a special trip to Townsville to plead Thurston’s innocence.

“When Gus came to do his review of the club, he told them JT wasn’t the problem. But there were concerns about whether Johnathan would remain at the club with board members keen to get rid of him.

“I even hired a private investigator to prove he hadn’t done anything wrong. They looked at footage and saw that he had just two drinks and walked out at 2.30am, being held up for 15 minutes to sign autographs.

“The negative publicity around the incident, saying Johnathan was drunk, made people at the club nervous.”

Thanks to Ayoub and Gould, Thurston retained the captaincy and remained at the Cowboys, becoming the superstar we see today.

At the time ‘JT’ wasn’t in a good place. It took a heart-to-heart with Gus about how he wanted to be remembered to see the light. Four years have passed since that conversation, but Thurston will never forget it.

“He (Gus) asked me how I wanted to be remembered,” Thurston recalls.

“If you look at all the great players who were coming to the end of their careers, that’s what they were remembered for, playing their best footy at the end of their careers.

“You know; Freddy, Locky, Joey and those types of blokes that had outstanding careers.

“That’s what really stuck in my head from that conversation; that those guys at the back-end of their careers were still at the top of their game.”

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