Sydney Roosters will face Wests Tigers in the opening round of the NRL finals after beating the North Queensland Cowboys 18-8 in an unconvincing display in Townsville on Saturday.

The victory will do little for momentum heading into the NRL finals with the Roosters taking close to 70 minutes to finally put away the embattled Cowboys who were missing a host of stars including Johnathan Thurston, Luke O'Donnell and Willie Tonga.

The performance also cost the club fifth place on the ladder, a 15-point win was required to leapfrog the Warriors, who earlier beat Parramatta 26-12.

Brian Smith's side now face an 'away' clash with the third-placed Tigers at the Sydney Football Stadium.

Three players were rested by Smith before kick-off, Anthony Minichiello, Jake Friend and Mose Masoe all given the night off to rest niggles despite being fit to play.

Smith issued a spray for the ages at halftime when the Roosters led 6-4 but could easily have trailed by as many as 20 points had the injury-riddled and out-of-form Cowboys managed to get their attack firing.

They conceded eight penalties to three, 11 errors to six and were camped down their own end of the field for most of the opening 40 minutes, only the boot of Todd Carney giving them the advantage.

It didn't seem to spark them into life too much after halftime with the determined Cowboys dominating possession with four consecutive sets that they could not convert into points.

Kiwi centre Shaun Kenny-Dowall had almost single-handedly held North Queensland at arm's length with his tries either side of the break.

However, the retiring Ty Williams kept the home side in the hunt when he latched onto a well-timed Grant Rovelli pass to score in his last game in the 62nd minute.

Finally, the Roosters managed to put the result beyond doubt in the 69th minute when Jason Ryles made a bust to set up halfback Mitchell Pearce for the match-winning try.

For the Cowboys, though, the season is over.

It was a night of history for the club with favourite son Matt Bowen playing his 200th game, just the second North Queenslander besides Paul Bowman to achieve the feat.

Bowen was heavily involved and scored the first try of the game in the 10th minute, showing some of trademark flair to beat Kenny-Dowall, Pearce and Mitchell Aubusson to the line.

The night also marked the farewell of 14 of the Cowboys top 25 players, with the likes of 2005 grand final run heroes O'Donnell, Carl Webb, Steve Southern and Williams all leaving the club.

Smith conceded his team was well off the mark in the clash.

"Our (motivation) was a little bit pickled at times," he said.

"We seemed to be a bit confused about what we were trying to do."

And he added there was plenty of work to do during the week ahead of the Tigers clash, labelling his team as the most inconsistent of all the clubs going into the playoffs.

"We're probably the most patchy of all the teams,'' he said.

"We know we're in for a hell of a game.

"We've had a couple of fantastic games against them this year.

"(But) I'm probably not as confident going into it as I was at various stages on the way through.

"I think we're going to need to find something. The first thing we're going to need to do is recover from this team.

For Cowboys coach Neil Henry, it was just relieving to finish off a horror season which has netted just five wins and not capitulate the way the club did in their 48-4 hammering at the hands of Canberra the week before.

"It wouldn't be too difficult to be better than last week (against the Raiders)," he said.

"We were playing with a bit of emotion tonight with a few players leaving and Matty Bowen's 200th.

"It was a spirited performance."

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