Cowboys preparation gamble backfires against Sharks, risking top eight
Coming off a bye round, North Queensland trained just three days out of eight before taking on the Sharks in a defeat that has left the club’s finals dream on a knife’s edge.
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Todd Payten has defended the Cowboys’ “relaxed” preparation for Thursday night’s defeat to Cronulla, insisting the team had arrived ready to defend its finals dream.
Coming off a bye round, North Queensland gave players five days off in the eight day lead-up to a potentially season-deciding clash.
One of those days off was on Tuesday, 48 hours before kick-off.
Co-captain Jason Taumalolo said players had been pleased by the low-key preparation in a pre-match interview with Fox Sports.
“I’m pretty happy we’ve had a relaxed preparation going into tonight’s game,” Taumalolo said.
“It (the top eight race) has been brought up a couple of times but the boys have been pretty easy. There is a lot on the line, the boys know that deep down inside.”
By full-time the Cowboys had been dismantled 32-12, leaking easy tries while failing to cross the stripe themselves for the final 60 minutes of the clash.
The loss has left the Cowboys in ninth place with a fortnight remaining in the season, and could drop to 10th if results go against the club this weekend.
Payten bristled when asked if North Queensland had made a mistake in taking the relaxed approach to preparation.
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The reigning coach of the year paused for six seconds before firing back a terse response.
“Were you at training?” Payten asked.
When informed that had been Taumalolo’s assessment, Payten relented.
“Our training sessions were short, sharp and intense,” Payten said.
“Our group respond better and play better when they are relaxed. If I am ‘amped up’ or consistently into our players that pushes my energy onto them and they tighten up.
“We have a group that play better relaxed. There was no mucking around or hijinks, everyone was focused and got their job done. We were outplayed in the end and put ourselves under pressure and played a good team.”
Payten had described the reduced workload as an effort to freshen up the group on the day before the match.
That appeared to pay dividends in the first half as North Queensland completed 20 from 22 sets and outgained the Sharks 861 metres to 806.
The Cowboys made fewer errors and committed fewer penalties than the visitors but could only produce two tries from 24 tackles in the opposition redzone.
Cronulla’s efficiency saw the Sharks bag five tries in 26 redzone tackles.
Payten admitted Cronulla’s bench had outperformed his own and credited the opposition’s scrambling defence.
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Originally published as Cowboys preparation gamble backfires against Sharks, risking top eight
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