North Queensland weapon Jason Taumalolo looks to repay the faith to coach Paul Green

COWBOYS wrecking ball Jason Taumalolo wants to repay the faith to Paul Green, never thinking he’d see 80 minutes so quickly in his career.

NORTH Queensland wrecking ball Jason Taumalolo never thought he’d see 80 minutes of action so quickly in his NRL career and now wants to repay the faith to coach Paul Green.

Taumalolo had been in and out of first grade ever since his 2010 debut, but the 20-year-old now finds himself an integral part of the Cowboys forward pack where he is playing 80 minutes almost every game.

Rookie coach Green has put so much faith in Taumalolo this season that he reshuffled the Cowboys pack, moving consistent second row performer Gavin Cooper to the left side of the field so Taumalolo could settle on his preferred flank.

Jason Taumalolo of the Cowboys looks on.

Taumalolo has rewarded Green’s gamble so far, he has averaged 127m per game to only trail gun prop Matt Scott (131m) and leads the way with 31 tackle busts and two linebreaks.

“Yeah Greeny has a lot of belief in me and I just want to repay that faith back and deliver what he thinks I can do and hopefully I can do that week in and week out which is something that I’m working on doing consistently,” Taumalolo said.

“I’m pretty happy with the opportunity I’ve been given, playing 80 every week. I never thought that would happen so soon.

“But in saying that I’ve adapted to it and hopefully my work keeps on increasing over the next couple of games and hopefully the 80 minutes will become second nature to me.

“In some patches I’m going all right. There is still a lot of footy to be played this year. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks I keep improving and working on my game.”

Jason Taumalolo at Cowboys training.

Two years after a massive eligibility fight between Queensland and New Zealand for his services, Taumalolo is likely to finally earn Kiwi Test selection this weekend for the trans Tasman clash with Australia.

“Oh, I will just wait and see. That is the last thing I want to think about at the moment,” he said.

“I’m focused on what I’m doing here at North Queensland and play good footy here first.” Taumalolo looms as one of the men who could spark something special out of the Cowboys, because they’re going to need another golden run this year if they’re to make the finals and live up to their potential.

North Queensland’s 2-5 start to the season has been a case of so close yet so far for the Cowboys, especially last week’s heartbreaking 26-21 defeat to Manly.

Jamie Lyon of the Sea Eagles is tackled by Jason Taumalolo of the Cowboys.

The Cowboys need to immediately bounce back to form tonight at home to Parramatta otherwise they could find themselves three wins outside the top eight after a third of the season.

Taumalolo said there were many positive signs from the Manly game, but the team needed to learn how to close out games better and handle setbacks with officials with greater poise.

“Yeah we get bad calls but that (mistakes) happens every game. You can’t dwell on that,” he said.

“That game was there for the taking and obviously we couldn’t execute and come out with the win.

“For the majority of the game the boys played well. That is the standard, that is how we want to play our footy.

“A footy game is 80 minutes and you can’t win a game in 60 minutes.”