Robson’s message: remember the pain
A VISIBLY shattered Reece Robson has called on his teammates not to forget the embarrassment they now felt, adamant they needed to live in the disappointment as they leave the NRL’S bubble.
The Cowboys hooker cut a forlorn figure after his side’s 46-18 loss to Manly, his voice shaking at times when discussing 2021 with the Townsville Bulletin.
At just 23, Robson is still very much at the start of his NRL career, and he has been one of the few consistencies to come out of the North Queensland campaign.
Statistically he has carried his weight, averaging 61 running metres and 38 tackles a game this season.
But after a year in which the Cowboys suffered 11 defeats from their past 12 encounters, Robson said he never wanted to feel that way again.
He said as gruelling as the competition had been, he and his fellow Cowboys did not deserve to switch off from the game and cast aside their performances.
“I don’t think it’s any surprise, we think it’s embarrassing for us and definitely not something we’re happy with or accepting,” Robson said.
“I think we’ve just got to take this break to think about what we’ve dished up this year. Get back to pre-season and remember how we’re feeling now so we don’t feel like this again next year.
“I think that’s just in you as a footballer. You try to switch off but you’re always thinking about it. We more need to keep thinking about it so we know how much it hurts.
“It’s not going to be easy to get to where we need to get to but we need to make that sacrifice so we’re not feeling like this again.”
Robson’s frustrations came from the Cowboys’ inability to overcome setbacks.
Frequently they had been able to wrestle back momentum against the Sea Eagles but each time they released the pressure, the floodgates opened. It has been a constant theme of the year.
With North Queensland’s season now over, the squad and support staff will at last be released from the coronavirus bubble restrictions, which have structured their lifestyle.
It comes as a relief to Robson, who admitted once the losses started piling up, the limitations he and his team were then living under made the disappointment impossible to escape.
But he said given the way they had performed in 2021, perhaps feeling the agony could be what steels them in the future.
“Definitely bubble life is not easy on anyone, and when you compound losses on top of that you’ve got no way to escape it,” Robson said. “That’s all you’re thinking about, so it definitely doesn’t help. But the way things have gone it would’ve been too easy to get away and forget about what we were dishing up, because it wasn’t good enough.
“I don’t think we deserve to be able to get away from that. We all need to look at ourselves in the mirror and dish up a lot better next year.”
Speaking after his side’s defeat to Manly on Saturday night, Cowboys coach Todd Payten signalled a complete change in the way he and his coaching team would approach the pre-season.
It has been a year-long message from the former Warriors mentor: the North Queensland squad needed to be more resilient in the face of adversity.
The message has not stuck for 25 rounds.
It was evident against the Sea Eagles when Murray Taulagi snatched an intercept to charge the length of the field, pulled up just short of the visitors’ line.
The Cowboys failed to score off the chance, and what transpired was a four-try romp from Manly in the final 10 minutes.
In summing up his first season as North Queensland’s coach, Payten said he entered the campaign hopeful he would have an impact on the team quicker than he actually did.
He confirmed a “mental skills coach” had been hired for the 2022 pre-season and that his players would experience a far more psychologically testing preparation.
“The last 10 minutes were absolutely unacceptable. I thought we gave up in the last few minutes when things were going the other way,” Payten said.
“Things will change, and this pre-season there will be a bigger focus on our mental skills along with our physical capabilities.
“Our last pre-season we probably put too much focus on our game model.”