Hooker keen to appease captain
COWBOYS hooker Reece Robson will be doing his best to even the ledger with Jason Taumalolo this week after inadvertently costing his co-captain his first try of the season in the defeat to the Sharks last week.
Taumalolo had appeared to put the home side in front in a close contest when a barnstorming run allowed him to touch down.
Controversially, though, the NRL Bunker ruled out the try, saying that Robson, who was in support, denied Braden Hamlin-uele and Toby Rudolf the chance to make a tackle.
The bunker’s decision leaves Taumalolo without a four-pointer this campaign and the powerhouse middle forward has now gone 29 matches without a try – the longest drought of his glittering 253-game NRL career.
Robson said he would be doing his best to get his teammate over the line against the bottom-placed Wests Tigers on Sunday at Queensland Country Bank Stadium.
“Sometimes you get the call sometimes you don’t and well, he wasn’t happy, but sorry about that mate,” Robson said.
“If it opens up on Sunday, I will definitely be putting him on a short ball and hopefully the big fella can go over for a meat pie.”
Taumalolo laid no blame at the feet of Robson for the disallowed try and said he would not be pushing him out the way if the same situation arose this weekend.
“No, never,” he laughed. “That decision (the Bunker call) it’s out of my hands. Those two guys are the referees and are doing a great job. Mine and Robbo’s job is to play the game and that’s all we can do. What the refs call is what they see, and we can only agree with that and move on from it.”
The Cowboys will welcome back Origin players Tom Dearden, Valentine Holmes, Jeremiah Nanai, and Murray Taulagi as they look to get back to winning ways.
Taumalolo said while there were fresh faces in the side in last week’s 26-12 defeat to the Sharks, there were no excuses defensively and the team must work harder on stopping sides scoring.
“Over the last three weeks we’ve been leaking 20-odd points and that’s an area we’ve been great at throughout the year before that,” he said.
“That’s something we need to fix if we want to play some finals football. We can’t be leaking 26 points every week and trying to score more points than the opposition.
“That’s not how we have been playing throughout the year. Defensively that’s something we can fix on Sunday and obviously with our Origin boys back, I am sure that’ll help.”
Robson also said defence would be key against the Tigers and the Cowboys would not be taking their opponents lightly despite their position at the foot of the NRL ladder.
“Obviously the position on the ladder isn’t in their favour, but I don’t think that matters in the NRL these days, anyone can come out on any occasion and really turn one on,” he said. “We know it’s going to be a big task against these boys.”