PREVIEW: 2024 North Queensland Cowboys
See Cowboys versus Tigers but also Tigers versus Cowboys for instruction
For many years, and perhaps the entire post-Thurston era, the North Queensland Cowboys have proven to be inscrutable.
In 2022, Townsend could put up a lob of a kick, have it land in a knot of three or four defenders but - and this is the crucial bit - he could expect Jeremiah Nanai to run through, make a catch and force his way over the line for a try. The defence could be a bit patchy, especially out wide, but through a combination of forwards having enough grunt to win a battle of field position regularly - the Cowboys outgained their opponents in 75% of games - and thoroughly - by an average of 234 metres - the middle was never challenged. Add in some of what scientists call “total bullshit” and the Cowboys were able to post a lot of wins. Everyone looked like crap by comparison.
The drop from Scott Drinkwater was to Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow, and the drop from Nanai and Gilbert was to Luki and Lemuelu. Tom Dearden hadn’t put any non-Seiboldian tape out there. Murray Taulagi figured out exactly where the sideline was to the millimetre and exploded and Val Holmes was still a star. There was a real vibe in the team, the confidence growing unmistakably week on week, that carried them to 15 minutes from a grand final.
In 2023, Townsend stopped putting those kicks up because there was no one coming down with them. The defence was not just patchy, but disorganised, dumb and confused. That disorganisation extended from the sidelines to the middle, which had turned into marshmallow. Everyone looked slow and like they’d forgotten how to tackle. That yardage advantage had diminshed from a 75% win rate to under 50% and from +234 metres per game to -20. The whole experience was perhaps best summarised by the game at the Tigers:
The drop from Scott Drinkwater was to ragdoll-in-a-washing-machine Tom Chester. Nanai and Luki played about a season between them, opening up minutes for Jack Gosiewski and Luciano Leilua. The drop from Jason Taumalolo was to, apparently, Jake Granville. Tualagi consoldiated his place as one of the finest wingers in the game but Kyle Feldt was punted to Cup to make way for Semi Valemei, who exploded but only for the three or four weeks of his nine week residency and had some of the same defensive issues. Val Holmes was a year older. Suddenly, the opposition looked a lot more competent.
And yet, sometimes, these guys were pretty bloody good. The Cowboys smashed the Roosters at Magic Round in the rain. North Queensland sent 45 past a full strength Melbourne, including a Chad Townsend field goal of disrespect. They beat the Panthers, which Origin affected or otherwise, not many have done since covid, with one of the great individual efforts by Scott Drinkwater in golden point. The Rabbitohs were crushed, beginning a terminal slide for South Sydney. The Cowboys could have made the grand final with the form they were in. The whole experience was perhaps best summarised by the game versus the Tigers:
Coaching is a bit like being a wizard. When it works, it’s magic. When it doesn’t, you’re a prat in a purple robe with a pointy hat. Bad coaching seems to be trying to find the right combination of words to cast a spell of winning. Good coaching is about setting players up to do their best and then some.
Sometimes, it clicks, like 2022. Sometimes, it doesn’t, like 2021. Sometimes it’s both, like 2023. It’s strange that you can have roughly the same squad, the same coach and the same handicaps as the rest of the league and have such divergent results but that’s the existentially terrifying part of coaching. It could all go away and you won’t understand why or know how to get it back. It might not even be your fault but you will be blamed for it.
Part of the problem is that teamwork is ineffable. It’s messy. It’s quantum. It’s chaotic. It’s the sum of a thousand, million little interactions that bring that specific set of people to that specific point and asking them to do something that almost no one else can do as well as they could. Spending time together, both on and off the field, is one ingredient but “fit” is a three letter word with huge implications.
Part of the problem is that the margins, especially in the NRL, are so fine. One good Chad Townsend season will take you from the bottom to the top of the league. That doesn’t seem like that should be the gap between the almost worst and almost best in the league but it does seem to be the case.
I think the story of the '22 Cowboys, and the subsequent failure of the '23 Cowboys, is actually a story of the Panthers and the Vlandoball era. Whether it was the rule changes or the Panthers’ process or, probably, a bit of both, the league is still highly stratified. Normally, there'd be a couple of great powers, plenty of minor powers, some non-powers and a balance that was constantly in flux.
Now, there's a supermassive black hole that has consumed the non-linear extremes of performance through the sheer gravity of Ivan Cleary’s system, and there's everyone else still playing rugby league with whatever is left over. Most teams have both ordinary and obvious weaknesses but the gap between those clubs that aren’t currently on fire is so close that you can trade your way to the top of the pile on confidence and a bit of competence and a bit of depth. The Cowboys did that in 2022 and the middle part of 2023. Take away the depth, and the middle goes to water and the confidence evaporates and we’re left with the rest of the 2023 Cowboys.
None of this is to say that Todd Payten is in any sort of imminent danger. The Cowboys are still capable of the kind of collpase that would end his career in Townsville but he’s also had the kind of run that will see him get a second shot somewhere else (Robina post-2026? Redcliffe post-2028?). Either way, Payten is currently 37-37 after 74 games at the helm of the Cowboys and he will come close to making that an even century this year. Losing a home preliminary final isn’t the best looking resume from 100 games.
The deadwood in the literal depths of the depth chart have been jettisoned for fresh faces1. We’re talking guys that have already made names for themselves in the back nine of 2023, like Robert Derby, Zac Laybutt and Kulikefu Finefeuiaki. Also, Tom Dearden is pretty good. I’m not real confident that Jake Clifford or Tom Mikaele, both in from Super League although the latter via Titans/Burleigh, are aces in the hole but perhaps will serve as cover during Origin, providing some of the depth that was missing last year.
My view forward for 2024 is that the wild oscillations from ‘21 to ‘22 back to ‘23 will dampen to find something close to the Cowboys’ true level and that should be a slightly above average team. The competence should be there and the depth has been restored and now they just need the confidence. That starts with one man saying the right words.
Guess: 13-11, 8th
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Stats Drop
A refresher on the metrics. The projections are built from a weighted average of the last three years of player TPRs. It tends to extrapolate what has happened to the future, which catches most of the league, but it misses the occasional explosions. Last season, backs had an unusually productive year compared to forwards and while the numbers are adjusting to this potentially new reality, the system is in transition. As usual, 1-17 is as per League Unlimited with some tweaks to account for news since publication.
Regression: The Cowboys had a points difference of +4, the tenth best in the league but better than two of the finalists. Their Pythagorean expectation was equivalent to 12 wins, compared to 12 actual wins, so we would expect a similar performance this season. The Cowboys will need to win at least 12 games to hit the overs on the disappointment line.
Projections: The Cowboys project as 11th best in the NRL by per game Taylors. They are the only C-grade teams, i.e. projected to produce more than 85% and less than 90% of the Panthers’ projected per game production. There are three projected A-grade teams, seven B-grade (Broncos) and six D-grade (Dolphins and Titans).
Experience: The Cowboys’ 1-17 are moderately experienced and have 66% of the career WARG of the top rated team by this metric (Rabbitohs, 74.2), which is the eighth most in the league. Drinkwater, Taumalolo and Holmes are the highest reated players by this metric, comprising more than half of the team’s experience.
Talent: The Cowboys have a NRL-average distribution of talent, per pre-season TPR projections. Six players are projected to produce more than half the team’s Taylors and these are the players in jerseys number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 62.
Coach: Todd Payten has generally extracted about a league-average amount of production out of his players. In 2022, his coach factor was +7 but this declined to slightly below 0 in 2023 for a career (2016 - 2023) total of +5, which is eighth best in the league. Since arriving in 2021, the Cowboys have added 52 class Elo rating points under Payten, the ninth best of the current NRL tenures.
That cost the Cowboys their relationship with the Blackhawks but that’s another story.
This assumes NRL average production out of Robert Derby and Zac Laybutt is projected off a small sample size.