Brilliant North Queensland fullback Matt Bowen has been ruled out of Saturday's NRL clash against St George Illawarra despite passing a searching fitness test.

Bowen, who underwent pre-season arthroscopic surgery, trained with the assistance of a cortisone injection in his knee on Thursday, but Cowboys coach Graham Murray said the club wouldn't put their prized asset at risk by rushing him back.

Backline utility Ashley Graham will again be asked to fill in at the back, the decision to rest Bowen made easier by Graham's seamless transition to the fullback role against Parramatta last week.

But the loss of Bowen will take away some of the momentum gathered by the crushing 38-14 win over the Eels last weekend.

The Cowboys will come up against an equally desperate Dragons side at Wollongong's WIN Stadium with both clubs having just one victory so far this season.

"It is a bit premature, (Bowen) has only had one run yesterday," coach Graham Murray said.

"Everything has come along fine, there is no swelling and he looks like he will be right for the following week but he needs a good week of training to get ready for that footy next week."

Graham was superb against the Eels, running for 120 metres as well as setting up a try before scoring one of his own.

One man who won't have such fond memories of last weekend is Dragons enforcer Jason Ryles after he gave away a golden point penalty which cost his side the game against Cronulla.

It took away from what was a monster game for the prop after he came up with 45 tackles, 17 hit-ups for 142 metres, six offloads and just one handling error.

"He copped a bit of criticism after the first game but his form the last three weeks has been outstanding," Dragons coach Nathan Brown said of Ryles.

"On the weekend he had 40-something tackles and carried the ball more metres than any other forward on the field and he's 115kg.

"With the tackle (which lost the game), he cleaned up some mistakes from teammates and tackled the most elusive bloke on the field.

"The fact he got there with his size so late in the game is a credit to him - it was one of those ones, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't."

The Dragons are again likely to look to representative centres Mark Gasnier and Matt Cooper to provide the majority of the attacking spark.

As a result the Cowboys coaching staff have been fine tuning the defensive techniques of centres Ben Harris and Mark Henry this week.

"They've got their own style in attack and they are two quite good defenders," Murray said.

"We have done a fair bit of work with them during the week particularly with the help of (assistant coach) Ian Millward and we think we can handle them."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP