Cowboys open door for new brigade
WILTSHIRE and Taulagi have a huge opportunity to kick the door down given several veteran Cowboys outside backs are off contract at the end of the year, including Antonio Winterstein, Kane Linnett and Javid Bowen.
Clifford is in the Cowboys top 30 squad, but the club may have to seek second- tier salary cap clearance to blood Taulagi and Wiltshire.
“Wiltshire’s been a pretty consistent performer for Mackay in a team that hasn’t been going that well,” Green said. “He’s a guy that we might have a look at, but then again you have to look at the salary cap rules which may stop us from doing that.”
Green was particularly disappointed with his team’s meek finish against the Raiders after they defied a lack of possession to remain in the game.
The Cowboys conceded some woefully soft tries, including four where they failed to defuse kicks and another when Canberra winger Michael Oldfield scored one pass off a scrum 10 metres from his own try line.
“I was probably more disappointed this week with our effort, in particular,” Green said.
“We did well to put ourselves in a position where we could have finished the game, but I thought our effort really dropped away toward the back end and we conceded some soft tries which disappointed me.
“Even though we hadn’t been winning the last six weeks I thought we were competing all the way through, and we just didn’t quite finish that game off.
“We want to be known as a team that competes and that’s important for us for the rest of the year. Then of course there’s JT’s ( Johnathan Thurston’s) last few games. “It’s important we send him out in a way he deserves.”