RED-HOT COWBOYS IN HUNT FOR MAROONS
THE Cowboys have a stunning 10 players in State of Origin contention after a tackling overhaul transformed North Queensland into one of the NRL’s best defensive teams.
After surging into the top four, the Cowboys will face a fortnight of reckoning, with clashes against the Melbourne Storm in Townsville on Saturday and then premiers Penrith.
The games against the NRL’s top two teams could decide whether the Cowboys are premiership contenders or pretenders and they will also be the final two hit-outs before Queensland coach Billy Slater selects his team for Origin I in Sydney on June 8.
Slater is keeping a close eye on North Queensland’s Maroons contingent following the remarkable resurrection of the Cowboys.
Centre Valentine Holmes is a guaranteed selection while Kyle Feldt, Coen Hess and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow are playing well and have featured in the Origin arena before.
Then there is the next generation of Queenslanders who have caught Slater’s eye with Murray Taulagi, Tom Dearden, Reuben Cotter, Tom Gilbert, Jeremiah Nanai and Heilum Luki firmly on the Maroons’ radar.
Coach Todd Payten said it was a positive for the Cowboys to have so many players in the Origin mix.
“It’s great for all of those individuals, the group, staff and club,” he said.
“I’d much rather coach a team that has Origin players in it and guys that are in the mix after doing the hard work. They deserve the acknowledgment they might get.
“I’m really optimistic and hopeful we can get as many players in as possible.”
While the Cowboys have caught the eye with their skilful style, the North Queensland resurgence has been built on defence.
On their way to finishing 15th last year, the Cowboys were the NRL’s worst defensive team, conceding a staggering 748 points at an average of 31.2 per game.
Not even the wooden spoon-collecting Bulldogs had such a poor defensive record, leaking 710 points at 29.6.
In contrast, premiers Penrith finished the regular season as the best defensive outfit, conceding 286 points at 11.9 before tackling their way to a grand final victory.
Going into the round 11 clash with Melbourne, the Cowboys are the NRL’s second-best defensive team behind Penrith (116 points), having only leaked 125 points at 12.5 per game.
“I do (believe that defence wins premierships),” Payten said.
“For every try you let in you’ve got to score two to get in front. When you stop them it puts less pressure on your attack.
“We’ve also had better ball control which has allowed us to have more energy to put into our attack. Last
Last year we made far too many errors Todd Payten
year we made far too many errors which chewed up our gas.”
But how did Payten conjure such a dramatic turnaround in North Queensland’s defence in the space of one off-season?
“After our review at the end of last season, we looked at all the tries we conceded,” he said.
“The majority of them came down to missed tackles that should have been made, it wasn’t necessarily a system breakdown. That was all down to desire or a technical component.
“On the back of that we did a lot of tackling in the pre-season day after day. That’s been the whole shift in what we’re doing on the park.There was a change in the way we got more reps into them.
“There was a big emphasis put on that side of our game.”