Cowboys coach Paul Green prefers to focus on performance, rather than away record

COWBOYS coach Paul Green is not worried about his team’s away form this year but he would like a win at Penrith to stop people talking about it.

TOWNSVILLE, QUEENSLAND - APRIL 02: Johnathan Thurston of the Cowboys looks on before the start of the round five NRL match between the North Queensland Cowboys and the St George Illawarra Dragons at 1300SMILES Stadium on April 2, 2016 in Townsville, Australia. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)

COWBOYS coach Paul Green is not worried about his team’s away form this year but he would like a win at Penrith to stop people talking about it.

The Cowboys will face the NRL’s 80-minute specialists at Pepper Stadium on Saturday.

Penrith’s five games this season have all been thrillers in which the result has been decided in the final minutes.

They have had losses by eight points to Canberra, two points to the Bulldogs and two points to the Dragons, and beaten the Broncos by one and Parramatta by two.

The Cowboys have scored the most points (132) and conceded the least (55) of any team in the competition this year but are yet to win away from 1300Smiles Stadium.

Their four-point loss to Parramatta in Round 2 was uncharacteristic and the golden-point thriller against the Broncos could have gone either way.

Green built last year’s premiership on turning around the club’s history of performing poorly away from home. The Cowboys had a terrific 9-3 away record in the regular season then beat the Storm in Melbourne and Broncos in Sydney to claim the title.

“The old road thing comes up again,” Green said when asked about avoiding a 0-3 record on the road. “It’s more about the performances and how we play.

“We’re just looking to back up last week’s performance (36-0 win against Dragons) and hopefully put back-to-back wins together.

“I would like to get a win so you blokes would stop asking me about the away record.’’

The Cowboys have every excuse to start the year slowly. They had a short pre-season after playing the grand final in October and opened the season with trips to Auckland for the Nines and England for the World Club Series.

They cover a lot of kilometres every year due to being based in Townsville and high performance manager Paul Bowman said it was a challenge to have the players peaking.

“We’ve always got one of the toughest travel schedules but it’s not going away,” Bowman said.

“We have to make sure we do the best we can to ensure when we travel we do the work to flush the travel fatigue out.

“You’re constantly learning. In the last couple of years we changed what we were doing and the results have been good.

“We’ve lost our first couple of away games this year but physically we felt good and we probably should have won the Brisbane game. We’re still looking for ways to improve and do things better.”

The Cowboys don’t want to play on their old travel concerns.

Co-captain Johnathan Thurston played 30 top-flight games last year, including Test, Origin and Indigenous All Stars games.

Bowman said the players had limited training in February but that benefit them later in the season.

“The big difference this year was how much travel we had to do in February,” he said.

“While there were some negative aspects it was very positive and gave the guys a lot of confidence to be playing in England.

“February was a lot different to what we usually do. We’re usually able to put a lot more work into them than we could. They were recovering from a lot of travel. We had to be a lot more efficient with what we were doing.”

Centre Kane Linnett (shoulder) may return against the Panthers which would give the Cowboys the same team that won last year’s title.