COWBOYS TEAM NEWS Axing gives Marsters some food for thought
off-contract Reuben Cotter and tearaway forward Tom Gilbert impressed in their longest stints in the NRL against the Dragons, and Hannay said it was the only time he could recall this year when no one’s performance justified facing the axe.
While Gilbert has once again been named in jersey No.16, Hannay said he would likely start in the back row, with Gavin Cooper reverting to the pine.
“It was reward for a win, but I said to the players ‘too often this year we’ve had enough guys in our team play a two out of 10 game to undo the good work of many’,” Hannay said.
“I just thought on the weekend, there wasn’t any of that – we didn’t have a player have a shocker. To me the players pick your team by the way they perform, and if they’re not performing then you’ve got to make changes.
“More consistent performances and less injuries would have led to some more consistent naming of teams this year, but we just haven’t had that consistency.”
TIME to reflect was perhaps the greatest benefit for Esan Marsters when he was axed from the Cowboys side.
Regarded as a key North Queensland signing in the offseason, the Kiwi international had not featured since his side’s Round 10 loss to Penrith, being unable to capture the immense potential he showed at Wests Tigers.
However he came back strongly on his return to the NRL in Sunday’s 23-22 win over St George Illawarra, running for 126m and limiting his errors to just one missed tackle.
Inconsistency has plagued Marsters’ first year in Townsville, particularly in defence where his combination on the right edge with Kyle Feldt at times leaked easy points.
But when he was given the chance to play on the left, the position he has previously filled for New Zealand, it presented him with greater freedom and comfort to implement what he had learned away from the field.
“It (being dropped) gave me time to go reflect on what I want to do. It’s not a good feeling getting dropped and trying to find your way back in,” Marsters said.
“There’s no (other) footy, so you can’t really provements).
“But I still came out and enjoyed training, it gave me a good break to think about the things I could work on.
“I haven’t really shown what I can do in defence, and that just comes down to being able to trust the people around me.
“Coming into a new side you want to build that straight away, (but) I’m still learning as a player … that’s what I learned when I got dropped – I still have a lot to offer and a lot to learn.
“Consistency is the only part of my footy that has not been good, and getting dropped gave me that room to think about what I can do, not just on the ball but off the ball as well.”
A tumultuous year on the field for Marsters has coincidshow (imed with excitement off it.
With his first child imminent, the 24-year-old is waiting on tenterhooks for a gender reveal – jokingly hopeful for a boy, but generally ecstatic regardless.
But on the field, he has been dealt perhaps as tough an initiation to a new club as he could have expected.
Already needing to juggle new systems and build new relationships, his spiral out of form earlier in the NRL campaign – along with the environment forced upon players by the coronavirus pandemic – has made developing trust on the field a challenge.
Throw in the host of coaching changes – from Paul Green’s resignation, to Josh Hannay taking over, to Todd Payten’s 2021 appointment – and there has plenty for Marsters to adjust to in a short period of time.
“I wanted to come up here and hit the ground running, but that hasn’t worked,” Marsters said.
“But in saying that, that’s what footy offers you – you go through ups and downs a lot of the time, and more so for me in the last couple of years, probably down.
“Coming into a new environment it’s pretty hard to get over your old ways, and that’s what I learned at training.”