If anyone knows how to rectify a slow NRL season start it is the North Queensland Cowboys.

Or so everyone thought.

Cowboys back-rower Gavin Cooper admitted dead-last North Queensland were no closer to solving why they had come out of the blocks so meekly ahead of Monday night’s home clash with Melbourne.

North Queensland may have been their own worst enemy in previous years but at least they had been able to find a way to turn around a pedestrian start, making the NRL finals in the past four years.

But after pre-season title favourites the Cowboys slumped to a horror 0-3 record ahead of their showdown with the Storm, Cooper conceded they had been left scratching their heads.

“For whatever reason as soon as things don’t go our way we drop the bottom lip and everyone’s heads go down,” he said.

“It is a bad attitude to have.

“We know how to play footy but for some reason it is not clicking for the whole 80 minutes.

“We have shown in patches how hard we are to handle.

“We just seem to compound our errors, then heads go down and we seem to think ‘here we go again’.

“But we have been here before and we will get out of it.”

However, everyone at North Queensland agrees they know where the process should start – defence.

The NRL table shows a league worst -48 points differential.

But scratch the surface deeper and some truly worrying stats are revealed.

The Cowboys are conceding the most points, tries and linebreaks while missing the third most tackles.

Not a good sign before they attempt to tackle a Melbourne side boasting fullback Billy Slater who needs two tries to surpass Ken Irvine’s record of most four-pointers at one club (171).

But Cooper – considered a Queensland Origin back-row chance this year – had not given up hope on a Cowboys revival.

“Some outside influences have put a lot more expectations on us than past years,” he said.

“Those expectations may have dropped after the way we have played.

“But we still hold ourselves high.”

KEY STATS

NORTH QUEENSLAND v MELBOURNE STORM

* The Cowboys have not started a season 0-4 since 2002.

* Since the NRL began in 1998, only four of the 19 teams that have started the season at 0-4 have gone on to make the finals and six teams have gone on to collect the wooden spoon.

* No team since compulsory grand finals were introduced in 1954 has won the competition starting 0-4.

* The Cowboys have not lost three straight matches at home since 2010 and have not lost their first three home matches of a season since 2004.