Esan in mix for centre stage
FOUR-WAY FIGHT A BIG HEADACHE FOR PAYTEN
TODD Payten has a large headache to deal with going into the NRL season opener.
And its name is Esan Marsters.
The Cowboys’ Kiwi centre was impressive in his 40-minute stint against the Broncos on Saturday, putting premiership winner Justin O’neill on notice with a dominant ballrunning performance.
Marsters ran for 105m, and made two line breaks and five tackle breaks as he lifted the Cowboys off the canvas in the second half. He also scored a try in the second half, sitting boom Broncos backrower Jordan Riki with a strong left-arm fend before crashing over the line.
It is a major turnaround for the centre, who struggled for consistency in his first year at the club, eventually being dropped in the back half of the season under Josh Hannay.
The 24-year-old admitted last month his confidence faltered last year, and once he was on the downward slide it was hard to arrest his momentum. But a fresh off-season with the arrival of coach Payten, and Marsters’ first child, Giselle, has him fired up and he showed it in a barnstorming effort against the Broncos.
“I am feeling a bit happier,” Marsters said. “I don’t know if it is having a new bub, or having the new coaching staff or a different environment. A lot of the stuff in the Cowboys has changed.”
Marsters will enter a fourway battle for a centre spot against premiership winner O’neill and young tearaways Hamiso Tabuai-fidow and Murray Taulagi, who both had moments of brilliance against the Broncos.
“Between the four centres, I thought there were good moments and that is another little headache,” Payten said after the trial. “(There were) encouraging signs in the second half, a bit of belief and a bit of resilience. They stuck at it and that is a good sign.”
Marsters was not the only Cowboy who had something to prove after a less than perfect 2020 campaign, with skipper Michael Morgan punching out a 60-minute stint fresh from injury.
Morgan took on the Broncos’ staggered defensive nsive line, and his grubber kick set-up for Mitch Dunn to score was all class.
“I was happy with the fact he just took the line on,” Payten said. “With our new model, we want our halves getting over the (advantage) line and taking the (defensive) line on.
“He did that at certain n times there – (he was) isoolating defenders and getting quick play-the-balls. lls. It was a good opportunity ity for him, a good confidence boost for him, considering his past 18 months. A bit of continuity uity to his footy and he will get to where he needs to go.”
AS the Cowboys begin life inside their new high-performance training facility on Tuesday, club legend Johnathan Thurston has heralded it as a potential catalyst for North Queensland’s return to glory.
The man who kicked the Cowboys to the club’s only premiership has had a personal tour of the Hutchinson Builders Centre and believes the state-of-the-art facility could breathe new life into the football side.
There is also a hint of envy for the 323-game NRL legend when he talks about the centre, which includes a fully functioning rehabilitation space kitted out with hot and cold plunge pools and an infinity lap pool.
“Could you imagine what we could have done, could you imagine Matty Bowen with a high-performance centre? Really?” Thurston said. “It is a great step for the Cowboys and for the community as well.
“I think the (Townsville) Fire will be in there as well, and it is a multipurpose centre so hopefully we can get teams from other codes up here to do their testing.
“There is a heat chamber and an altitude chamber in there as well. Triathletes training for the Olympics could come here.
“Hopefully we are close to announcing the Brisbane Olympics in 2032 and that will bring a lot of excitement for the community up here, especially with those facilities.”
With club doctor Chris Ball and physiotherapist Steve Sartori expected to move their offices into the third floor of the facility, it will also give the club the best access to top-level medical care throughout the 2021 season.
That will be important to the Cowboys with Thurston believing an injury-free season is key to bringing success back to North Queensland.
“The biggest thing is keeping our spine on the paddock, keeping our big boys on the paddock as well, which is something we have not been able to do over the last three or four years,” he said.
“Hopefully they all come through (the trials) unscathed and can start working on those combinations to get a good start to the year.”
The Cowboys will be flying into the season after their come-from-behind win over arch rivals Brisbane in their only NRL trial at Redcliffe and Thurston said it was an exciting time to be a fan of the club.
The Cowboys will start the season away from home against last year’s grand finalists Penrith on March 13 before returning for their first game at Queensland Country Bank Stadium against St George Illawarra on March 20.
KOLBY Johnston wants to be an inspiration for his kids, for his family and for the next generation.
But most of all he wants to be an inspiration for himself.
The man who had the world at his feet after becoming a professional boxer and fighting his way to fourth in Australia in the super-welterweight division had it all ripped away by his own mistake.
Johnston veered off track, fell in with the wrong crowd and wound up doing time behind bars.
He served 15 months in jail and is still serving a sus
pended sentence until 2024. He also lost four years of his boxing career.
Johnston had hit rock bottom.
But a chance to train with Dennis Clancy at Hawks Boxing Gym, and a bout opening up on the Fight For Our Future night in Townsville, has the 29-year-old focused on staying on track.
“I have boxed all my life and whenever I have veered away from boxing, I have fallen off the tracks,” Johnston said.
“I am someone where you can see how boxing works.
“I can go out there and show people that you can fall off the tracks but you can get
back on the through boxing. thing to aspire to.
“When you’re boxing, you have something to look forward to in life, you are eating healthy and doing the right thing.
“Every day you are training and you have something you have got to do.
“When you are not boxing, you lose that discipline and end up not doing too well.”
It is not the first time Johnston had found himself in trouble.
The grandson of bush boxing legend Don “Bronco” Johnston, he grew up in the travelling boxing tents of Fred Brophy and fought more
right path It is somethan 400 times under the big top. But when he returned home to Mount Isa, that fighting spilt out on to the streets.
“I just grew up fighting on the streets, I knew I was going to end up in jail or dead, so I decided to use my talents for something better,” he said.
“I quit my job out there and moved to Townsville and turned pro under Gonzo Hooper.”
Johnston believes his latest opportunity in the ring could be one of his last, so he is desperate to give it everything.
It is also a chance to prove to everyone, including himself, that he can make the right choices.
“I want my children look up to someone who doing well,” he said.
“I don’t want them to have a father who is doing this or that, I want them to have a father who has titles and is a good boxer.
“I have wanted to be a boxer my whole life … getting back into that is me getting the ball rolling again and getting back to where I should be.”
The Fight For Our Future night is promoted by Ace Boxing along with the One Community, One Standard group and is aimed at raising awareness for the region’s crime scourge and showing our youth a path away from crime. to is