North Queensland Cowboys coach Paul Green has asked his less experienced players to stand up and take the pressure off the Cowboys’ returning State of Origin stars in tonight’s NRL match against the Knights in Newcastle.
Queensland playmaker Johnathan Thurston and NSW prop James Tamou will back up from last Wednesday’s bruising second Origin, but Green said other players had a responsibility to pull their weight. “There’s quite a few guys who have played 60-plus games now,” he said.
“They’re not rookies anymore, and it’s time for those guys to stand up. We’ve had a really good week at training. It’s been a good week of prep, so hopefully that translates into a good performance on Monday night.”
After an inconsistent season that has seen them struggle to win away from Townvsille, the Cowboys sit two wins outside the top eight in 11th. The Knights are bottom of the ladder and no chance of qualifying for the finals, but – on paper at least – have a team capable of upsetting North Queensland.
Cowboys forward Glenn Hall said he and his teammates were still smarting after their last-start loss to Parramatta. “Defensively against Parramatta, we went away from what we do well,” he said. “Getting back to that is our number one goal. Our structures need to be put back in place there and that’s what we’ll be concentrating on. The guys we have coming in can do the job, for sure.”
Newcastle centre Dane Gagai said the Knights couldn’t focus all their attention on Thurston. “Everyone knows how good Thurston is and we are obviously going to have to do a job out there to contain him,” he said. ” But we can’t just focus on one person because it’s a whole team that wins a game.”
