Scott’s right for ’19, says Green

TRAVIS MEYN them are keen for big seasons.

“Thumper has worked hard in the pre-season, he’s really confident about the year ahead.

“Matt missed a fair bit of footy last year and we really missed his presence, so it’s good to have him back.

“There’s no reason why he can’t play out the season.

“He is fully fit and doing all the training so that’s not a concern for me.”

McLean, 27, only played 10 games for the Cowboys after leaving Melbourne and was unavailable for the State of Origin series.

The 2018 season was a disaster on many fronts for the Cowboys, and Taumalolo admitted North Queensland’s highly rated forwards wanted to bounce back this year.

“A lot of people would have had high expectations after the year we had in 2017, making the grand final without Matt Scott and Johnathan Thurston,” he said.

“A lot of people would have thought we’d be up there, but we didn’t really live up to that and the rest is history.

“Having ‘Macca’ (McLean) and Matt Scott this year will be a huge boost, but we saw what can happen last year.”

Green will field a strong team in tonight’s trial after North Queensland’s pre-season preparations were hampered by recent flooding in Townsville.

Te Maire Martin and Jake Clifford will start in the halves with Michael Morgan rested and Taumalolo said North Queensland needed to start the season well. “We had a slow start last year and never really got momentum to turn things around,” he said.