Two games into his captaincy, Brisbane forward Sam Thaiday will play his 150th match on Friday night against North Queensland – the club which didn’t rate him a NRL prospect as a teenager.

On a night when Brisbane’s faithful welcome home prop Petero Civoniceva to Suncorp Stadium, Thaiday leads the Broncos in his milestone game after replacing Darren Lockyer as only the eighth captain of the six-time premiers.

The Cowboys failed to sign Townsville-born Thaiday as a young talent before former Brisbane recruitment genius Cyril Connell swooped to get him to the Broncos in 2001 as a 17-year-old.

“Its a great game for Sam to bring up that milestone,” noted coach Anthony Griffin.

“It’s a new era for the club and to clock up 150 games and still be only 26 is a terrific effort.

“He was very good (in his captaincy debut) against Parramatta.

“He didn’t say much – he led from the front which is exactly what we wanted and need from him.”

With the Cowboys stewing over what co-skipper Johnathan Thurston described as a “disgraceful effort” against Gold Coast at the weekend, Griffin is expecting a massive backlash from the embarrassed North Queenslanders.

The Cowboys’ completion rate was the worst in 800 games since NRL began keeping detailed stats.

“I know one thing … they won’t have another one like that,” said Griffin.

“They’re a quality football side. They’re one of the favourites for the competition.

“Every now and again in a season, you have a night you want to forget and they had theirs at the weekend.

“I’m positive that’s only going to inspire them to be at their very best on Friday night.

“They’ve got too many good players like JT (Thurston), Matty Bowen and (Matt) Scott who have a lot of pride.

“We won’t even watch the tape of their game.”

Thaiday could play his milestone game alongside Civoniceva, pitching them head-on into battle against Queensland State of Origin team-mate Scott, whom Civoniceva openly rates the No.1 prop in the the game.

It was thought Thaiday would move to the second-row to make way for a Civoniceva-Ben Hannant front-row with Ben Te’o dropping to the bench.

But Griffin might elect to leave the fearless-running Thaiday up front following his strong performance against the Eels.

“Sam gives us that little bit of variety, he’s got an offload and he threw a couple of nice passes (against Parramatta),” said Griffin.

“He’s a handful when he runs and I’m not sure what we’ll do there just yet.”

The Cowboys reportedly had a second chance to grab Thaiday when he was off contract in mid-2010 but, by then, the former Townsville Brothers junior was well on his way to representative fame and in line for the Broncos captaincy.

It all adds a little more spice to Friday night’s Queensland derby.