Darren Lockyer: Ball now in Paul Green's court to produce as North Queensland coach

DARREN Lockyer: I was coached by Paul Green when he was an assistant at the Broncos and he is tactically very strong.

New Cowboys coach Paul Green.

PAUL Green started work in Townsville this week with the Cowboys' premiership window ajar and a first priority to make sure he brings the club's senior players along with him.

Greeny has been a part of three premierships in three years, two as coach of Wynnum in the Intrust Super Cup and one as assistant coach at the Roosters.

That’s great for the resume, but it also means he goes to his big coaching moment in Townsville with extra expectations.

I’m sure Greeny will want to establish a good relationship with the experienced players at the Cowboys and make sure they buy into what he wants to achieve at the club.

He said when he got the job that the Cowboys didn’t do themselves any favours this year by feeding the expectation  they would be top-four contenders, pressure they didn’t need.

He has a talented squad capable of winning the club’s first premiership. Fullback Lachlan Coote is a good signing from Penrith and Greeny will want to build on the improvements made in the hooker position late in the season.

If he can strengthen his squad with one or two quality players he really wants, it becomes more his team, like it took two seasons for Wayne Bennett to sort through who he wanted and didn’t want at the Knights.

But good coaches find a way to win, no matter who is in the team.

I was coached by Paul when he was an assistant at the Broncos and he is very intelligent in the tactics of the game.

He knows what success looks like and was well coached as a player by men like Wayne, John Lang and Tim Sheens.

I know when he retired as a player he had a real desire to be a coach. It starts now.

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THE outgoing Cowboys coach Neil Henry said the Cowboys are out of sight, out of mind with most in Sydney’s league communities.

But in one way, I hope the NRL are closely watching developments over the off-season at three Sydney clubs — Parramatta and Wests Tigers as well as, obviously, Cronulla.

There have been a lot of good things in rugby league in 2013, culminating in one of the great grand finals.

The game got the obstruction problem solved by adding ex-players to the video review boxes. Good call.

Penrith, under Phil Gould, have made progress and their champion under-20s team indicates the Panthers are on track.

That’s great for league’s presence in western Sydney against the other codes. But developments at Parramatta make me shake my head and the Tigers board has been at odds along joint-venture lines.

The NRL needs to address the competition’s weaknesses and make them strengths. We as a game need to take some action at Parramatta. If it’s new administrators they need, put the right people in. If it’s new structures, then let’s implement them. The bigger picture for the game should be the focus.

We can’t sit back and just watch Parramatta much longer.

South Sydney’s rise was a great thing for the game in the past two years. A successful Parramatta, a top-eight side, would bring an army of many thousands back to the game.

The NRL put an acting chief executive in at Cronulla during the season and he quit when he was left out of the loop on important club matters.

But the Eels chairman, Steve Sharp, wants one coach, Brad Arthur, and other board members blocked the appointment this week because they wanted Jason Taylor.

There was outrage from Cronulla when it was reported some at the NRL wanted to ship them off to Queensland at the conclusion of the anti-doping investigation.

I’m not a fan of Sydney clubs being relocated. They should stay at their traditional home where their history lives.

If another club from Queensland and one from Perth can be shown to grow the game without impacting on the financial strength of existing clubs, I’m all for expansion in a few years’ time.