The games that shaped the North Queensland Cowboys’ success in 2022
The Payten era has been revolutionary for the North Queensland Cowboys. We’ve broken down the games that made the difference for the team ahead of the NRL preliminary final.
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TODD Payten will coach North Queensland for the 50th time on Friday with a berth in the NRL grand final riding on the result.
His side’s journey from rugby league laughing stock to contenders to win it all didn’t happen overnight.
Desperate lows and fleeting highs crystallised the need for this football team to mirror the community it represented: hardy, tough folk who never give up.
Over the course of 49 games North Queensland has rediscovered that Cowboys DNA pioneered by the club greats of old.
This is the remarkable story of how a coach, a halfback and a generation of North Queensland’s finest up-and-coming youngsters have blossomed from dark days to within a game of greatness.
GAME ONE
“We just weren’t good enough. We are a long way off.”
The Payten era began with a 24-0 shutout defeat in Penrith that left the Cowboys coach frustrated and ready to lay down the law.
He called out captain Jason Taumalolo for giving up on a play late in the match that directly led to a Penrith try.
It was raw, unfiltered commentary from a coach who demands better.
“If we let Jase get away with that, the young forwards we have in our club think that is how you defend … it’s about how we defend as a unit.”
It was a controversial press conference that left none in North Queensland wondering about the mettle of their new head coach.
GAME 13
Having won six of their last eight, a 50-18 thrashing in Manly became the first and only time Payten’s Cowboys had given up a half-century of points in a game.
The Manly horrorshow saw the debut of Tom Dearden in North Queensland colours.
“I reckon we just thought it was going to happen for us. We didn’t have the right physicality or mentality,” Payten fumed after the match.
North Queensland would go on to lose 11 of its next 12 games, missing the wooden spoon by one place.
Physicality and mentality were the two critical concerns Payten would dedicate the next six months to fixing, with a pre-season spent fixing the mental fragility that had crept into the football club.
GAME 27
A 38-12 smashing of the Brisbane Broncos in round three announced to the world that North Queensland’s brutal pre-season had delivered results.
A star was born in Jeremiah Nanai, who blitzed the Broncos for a hat-trick.
Critics ready to dismiss the Cowboys for another season of wooden-spoon dodging were forced to eat their words as red-hot Brisbane were put to the sword.
Chad Townsend’s arrival from the Sharks, via the Warriors, had delivered the game manager Payten knew had been a missing piece.
The physicality and mentality Payten had been searching for since his first match was plain for all to see.
GAME 28
The highs … and the lows.
After the emotional high of the Broncos beat down, a Trent Robinson-less Roosters pulled down the Cowboys pants in Townsville as brain fades saw Griffin Neame, Tom Gilbert and even Chad Townsend sent for 10 minutes.
The ruthless Roosters made them pay. It was a critical junction in the season, with the possibility of collapse a real prospect.
Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow’s knee injury brought livewire fullback Scott Drinkwater back into the team, which after a rocky start, helped ignite a six-game winning streak than began with a famous comeback in Canberra.
GAME 35
A sellout home game, top of the table, against a vulnerable Melbourne side missing Ryan Papenhuyzen and Jahrome Hughes, and the Cowboys secured a club record victory over the Storm to notch six wins in a row.
Craig Bellamy said after the match that he saw more of the famous Storm desire to compete in the home side than his own.
“With all due respect, they just out-competed us. They were smarter than us … that’s where they were way superior to us tonight.”
GAME 36
Another shut-out to Penrith but one in which Payten walked away from confident his side had the steel to match it with the defending champions when they next met.
North Queensland conceded 22 points to nil but made 425 tackles in a declaration of defensive intensity that proved their premiership credentials.
“We’ll walk away knowing we can beat them if we get our fair share of possession,” Payten said.
“There were periods in the first half where I thought we really worried them with the ball but we couldn’t find the patience or the last pass.”
GAME 49
The game of the season went 93 minutes, until Valentine Holmes delivered the knockout blow to bring North Queensland into sight of the club’s third grand final.
The Qualifying Final against Cronulla had it all, with electric play, intensity in spades and the killer instinct to put the game away that all future champions need.
Incredibly, the Cowboys looked gone after two Cronulla tries in the 57th and 67th minutes left North Queensland on life support at 30-22.
But with the Cowboys about to flatline, Todd Payten’s troops conjured the greatest of great escapes, Holmes kicking a 73rd minute penalty goal before Jason Taumalolo crashed over 17 seconds from full-time for 30-30, setting the stage for iceman Holmes once again.
How we got here
“I JUST wanted to say, North Queensland deserves a new stadium.”
They were the words of Cowboys great Johnathan Thurston following the 2015 grand final win that essentially assured the city a new stadium.
Now, the Cowboys will get the chance to play in the NRL preliminary final on home turf.
While the stadium is no stranger to great rugby league, having hosted State of Origin Game 1 in 2021 because of Covid-19 lockdowns, this will be the teams biggest and most important game in the new fortress to date.
JT’s words might have cemented the city’s stadium future, but the idea cropped up as early as 2010 when Townsville was part of the 2022 FIFA world cup bid.
But it wasn’t until 2014, when current Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk promised a new stadium as part of the election campaign that the idea was set to become a reality.
It took a few years, but at the end of 2016, a Townsville City Deal agreement, which included the new stadium, was signed by all levels of government.
Four years later, the stadium was christened with its first NRL game when the Cowboys took on the Broncos.
While there was doubt that the new city centre location would be positive for the game, the stadium has become a popular venue for sporting matches, concerts and other events.
Origin may have been the stadium’s biggest test, the preliminary final will be the most important.
The entire city will be holding their breath, crossing their fingers and knocking on wood when the Cowboys take the field on Friday night with hopes of a win in sight.
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Originally published as The games that shaped the North Queensland Cowboys’ success in 2022
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