Cowboys Jason Taumalolo back to full strength after lower-leg injuries plagued game
NRL veteran Jason Taumalolo pulls slick trick out the bag after finally returning to full strength after recovering from lower-leg injuries.
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It’s the statement that will be music to the ears of long-suffering Cowboys fans.
After years of lower-leg injury setbacks, including his latest bout of off-season surgery for a Lisfranc injury in December, Cowboys star wrecking ball Jason Taumalolo has declared his confidence is back.
It’s been rather apparent when watching the big man move on the football field.
Used in short sharp bursts by Cowboys coach Todd Payten, Taumalolo’s resurgent return to the field in the second half of games has been a key catalyst to the Cowboys run of four-straight comeback victories.
While the outside backs and star playmakers are reaping their just plaudits, the former captain and on-field general has quietly returned to some of his devastating best running form.
Taumalolo is averaging more than 120 metres per game at better than 10 metres per carry, despite only playing his second-fewest minutes per game in more than a decade.
But it is the front rowers sharp lateral movement at the line of scrimmage, something missing from his game in recent seasons, that is proving hardest to handle for opposition packs.
“(The sidestep) is something I haven’t pulled out of the bag too often. I like to leave that to the more fancier guys, but every now and then it doesn’t hurt,” Taumalolo said.
“To be running freely, especially after the surgery at the end of last year, I am feeling a lot better and a lot more confident (in my legs).
“I can only take that as a good thing and build on that for the rest of the season.”
The Cowboys will need Taumalolo to be at his line-breaking best as they go head-to-head with one of the more feared packs in the NRL in the Warriors this weekend.
While the Warriors are still missing injured spearhead James Fisher-Harris, there is no shortage of representative firepower in their frontline including Mitch Barnett, Kurt Capewell, Marata Niukore and Erin Clark.
Matching it with the top forward packs has been one of the Cowboys key struggles this season, having been manhandled by the much-vaunted Sharks and Broncos packs in back-to-back weeks.
But Taumalolo said his troops would not back down in the face of the Warriors challenge.
“They have big bodies all over the field and we have to match them fire with fire,” Taumalolo said.
“(The Warriors) have been really consistent and their defence has been one of the best in the competition. The way they play is real physical too, so that is somewhere we will have to match them if we want to be in the game for the whole 80 minutes.
“We haven’t really talked much of a game plan, but their two leaders are Barnett and Fish. I don’t think Fish is playing, but Mitch will take it upon himself to be that leader and be that enforcer type that Fish normally is.
I think we have our guys who do the same thing, I think it will be a pretty exciting battle through the middle.”
NRL star bewildered by headhigh ‘crackdown’
Confusion around the NRL’s latest ‘crackdown’ on high tackles is being felt at all levels of the game, but most notably at the coalface.
While the game’s hierarchy refuse to label it a crackdown, despite 15 players being sent to the sin bin in Round 8, leading players know any slight mistake could see their team at a disadvantage.
Cowboys veteran Jason Taumalolo has experienced his fair share of short-term crackdowns across a glittering 10 year career, but admitted he was at odds with the latest heavy handed officiating.
With players en route to Brisbane for the annual Magic Round showpiece, the 280-game veteran suggested that could throw an extra spanner in the works.
“It is a lot more sin binning these days than it was back then (early in my career),” Taumalolo said.
“They are trying to crack down on the head highs and whatnot.
“I think there are deliberate head highs or contact with the head and then there are accidentals. You can’t be sin-binning every other person for touching the head. That is not my way of seeing things but everyone has their own opinion.
“What they do with Magic Round, it could be hit and miss, we will see what happens.
Frustrations among fans and legends of the game have boiled over in the past week, with Immortal Andrew Johns one of the more vocal critics of the increase in sin bins.
At the heart of frustrations has been a recent tendency for the NRL Bunker to intervene in running play to retrospectively sin bin players for previous indiscretions, some more than a completed set prior.
NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo dismissed claims that there had been a rule crackdown, but said the officials may have overstepped in some regard.
“There’s been no crackdown, and there’s been no policy change,” Abdo told Mark Levy on radio station 2GB.
“A couple of weeks ago we had a round where the refs missed a few high tackles that should have been sin-binned.
“We communicated through the clubs saying, ‘That’s not the standard, the standard is what is has always been – it’s been consistent the last couple of seasons’.
“What we’ve seen now is a slight over-reaction the other way, which is unfortunate. I get the frustration around the Bunker intervening in play. That’s certainly not something any of us want to see.
“I think there has been too much intervention. The Bunker is meant to intervene if there is a serious act of foul play or there’s a howler. We don’t want the howlers missed. But there has been too much intervention”
As for Taumalolo, he said while confusion reigned, the onus would be on the players to keep their noses clean.
“For our sakes we just have to be clean and try to avoid any contact with the head as much as we can,” he said.
“If we do that then we have less chance of us having 12 men on the field or even less.”
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Originally published as Cowboys Jason Taumalolo back to full strength after lower-leg injuries plagued game
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