NRL 2024: Why Cowboys coach Todd Payten is under more pressure than Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon for elimination final
Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon is desperate to end his side’s winless finals run which extends to 2018. However, there are 55 reasons that Cowboys coach Todd Payten is under more pressure when the two collide in their elimination final.
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Braith Anasta asked the NRL 360 panel this week, which coach is under more pressure ahead of the elimination final on Friday night.
Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon or Cowboys mentor Todd Payten?
Without a finals win at the club since 2018, Fitzgibbon was asked at his press conference on Thursday morning how badly he wanted to rip the Gorilla from the roof of the team bus headed for Allianz Stadium.
“It’s hard to describe (how badly I want it) in a couple of sentences, I reckon,’’ Fitzgibbon said with the type of gaze in his eyes you would expect from a bloke who does jiu jitsu on the morning of a game in an attempt to share the exhaustion of his players.
The Sharks coach is a winner. Always has been.
As a player, he played in 20 finals matches.
He played for NSW and Australia, won the 2002 grand final with the Roosters, won the Clive Churchill Medal in that match, was a four-time winner of the Roosters player of the year award and as a gun goalkicker, remains the highest pointscoring forward in NRL history.
What Fitzgibbon doesn’t know about winning isn’t worth asking.
Which is why Friday night means so much to the Sharks mentor.
That said, my colleague James Hooper at Fox League made a critical point when posed with the question from Braith.
Coaches can get you so far, but it’s rosters that win premierships.
As far as big-game experience and representative class goes, the Sharks side is hugely inferior to what Payten has at his disposal.
State of Origin is the closest comparison to finals pressure.
Cronulla have just two players – Nicho Hynes and Cameron McInnes – that have experienced a total of three State of Origin games.
Payten has six State of Origin players in Tom Dearden, Reuben Cotter, Valentine Holmes, Jeremiah Nanai, Murray Taulagi and Reece Robson in his line-up who combined have played 55 Origins.
Again, 55 Origins to three.
And that’s without mentioning the 26 Test matches that prop Jason Taumalolo has played.
Forget trying to beat Cronulla in week two of the finals, Payten has a team capable of winning premierships.
It’s not even a debate which coach is under more pressure.
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Originally published as NRL 2024: Why Cowboys coach Todd Payten is under more pressure than Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon for elimination final
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