Welcome to Bovine Bulletin, a monthly newsletter about the North Queensland Cowboys.
I try not to write these things without putting some calories into it but I find it hard, looking back on the North Queensland Cowboys’ season, to say anything other than: well, there you go.
Even removed at a bit of distance from the end of season, and the last issue of the Bovine Bulletin, nothing worthwhile has resolved into clarity. It was a 9-14-1-ass season with the league’s second worst defence, conceding 28.5 points per game. The results, the vibe, the stats all point in the same direction, delivered with the smirk of a poorly written superhero’s dialogue, of That Just Happened.
You might be able to forgive that if the Cowboys were able to generate Dolphins-level points scoring but that resolutely did not happen. There was a shuffle in the halves that didn’t make things better and by the time it was shuffled back again, the season was over and Purdue’s early season superman impersonation had more than a touch of kryptonite about it by the end.
A slow start followed by victories over the Raiders and the Panthers1 in successive weeks looks strange now and won’t make any more sense with time. As usual, the superior form only lasted five or six weeks, then the Cowboys tapered away from looking like one of the best in the league to only managing to beat the really bad teams.
That hot streak of six weeks is most vexing. In the same way that Justin Holbrook’s characteristic trait with the Titans was giving up unloseable leads, the superpower of Todd Payten’s Cowboys is that they can get it together for six weeks. Sometimes, they build on that and some luck of the draw to work to a decent finals finish. Most of the time, the purple patch is the high point of the season. At the risk of making the plane out of the black box, why not just do that all the time?
The price for the severe underperformance has been paid by the assistant coaches, who have all been cleared out while Payten retains the full support of the board, and in the grand tradition of the North Queensland Cowboys, somewhere between five and a dozen fringe roster players have been moved on after briefly being touted as the next big thing. They make way for the next generation of young hopefuls to be milled by the Cowboys grinder before leaving and (sometimes) finding success further south.
The changes may pay off but unless that 28.5 points conceded per game comes down under 20, none of it is going to matter. I subscribe to the belief that defence is primarily coaching. It requires a clear understanding of what everyone is supposed to be doing, so they can act as a coherent unit, all of which screams middle management. Whether that’s up to the assistant put in charge of defence or the head coach, the latter will be held accountable for the team’s performance one way or another.
Thank you for reading Bovine Bulletin
If this your first time, you might like to subscribe to get future free versions of these newsletters below.
If you enjoyed it, consider sharing with the people you think it might interest.
The nascent Cowboys women’s program delivered in 2025. Whether you thought that maybe they should have delivered a finals win as well, is a question of degree of success but not of kind. To have been in the competition for three seasons and now be the fourth best team in a field of twelve, having eclipsed the Titans, is a good result, however you slice it.
Crushed by the Roosters, 30-0, and by the Broncos, 50-4, is not what you want. Being handled by the Knights is fine, really; they won two titles not that long ago. The Cowboys probably shouldn’t have lost to the Warriors but you can blame the conditions for spitting up a weird result. Splitting a series with the Sharks, although losing the more important of the two fixtures, and beating the crap out of the rest of the league is a season well done. If nothing else, you gotta start somewhere.
The move of Jakiya Whitfeld to fullback and the shuffle of Fran Goldthorp to wing made both players more effective. Tallulah Tillett and Krystal Blackwell, two local girls, delivered on their promise. The pack looked imposing enough and operated with sufficient skill, strength and speed to keep North Queensland comfortably on top of most games. Makenzie Weale made the jump from the bench to starting in the Origin arena and while that didn’t pan out series-wise, it shows the tier of quality that the team is mixing with.
Perhaps most surprisingly was the lack of reliance on Kirra Dibb. The star playmaker was out of sorts for most of the season, even being seemingly dropped for union convert Rosie Kelly to partner Tillett. The halves were more of a revolving troika through the year but Tillett and Dibb showed enough that the Cowboys don’t need to worry if Kelly doesn’t pan out and/or returns to union. That’s an extremely healthy sign.
Unlike the men’s side, there’s a long way to go until season 2026 commences. There’s a big lump of the second tier of the roster coming off-contract and how the next season pans out will depend on who gets re-signed, who gets turfed to the Pride and if any new blood comes in. The Titans are active but we haven’t heard much from the Cowboys yet.
A unique twist in the tail is the mooted move to Cairns, which may be completed in time for the 2027 season. How that goes down with the different roster demographics - those from Townsville, those from elsewhere in the North, those from the South and below - remains to be seen but it is happening:
The North Queensland Cowboys have taken a crucial step in their Cairns expansion plans, with the Cape York Hotel earmarked to become its NRLW team’s spiritual home from 2027.
The Cowboys Leagues Club has submitted a development application to Cairns Regional Council to transform the historic pub into a new social club for the team and supporters.
Men’s player of the year: Tom Dearden
Unlike Drinkwater, Robson and former Cowboy, Townsend, Tom Dearden is a spine player of North Queensland for North Queensland. In an otherwise uninspired season from the Cowboys, Dearden’s play in Origin was a highlight, cementing a transition from good club halfback to starting Maroon. At Railway Estate, he managed to accumulate the second most WARG of any Cowboy and outperformed his pre-season projection by 20 Baxes per game. While Dearden’s play for the Cowboys was less stellar - but still fine in a team that was mostly crap! - the challenge for Payten, or his successor, will be unlocking that Origin level of performance more often.
Previous winners: Scott Drinkwater (2023), Kyle Feldt (2024, liftime achievement award)
Women’s player of the year: Jakiya Whitfeld
Whitfeld has always been a supremely impressive player. It was clear that she was a top notch signing last year and had only been denied some representative opportunities by injury. The transition to fullback has felt seamless and has been extremely productive, netting Whitfeld 0.5 wins above reserve grade in a season where she missed two games. Maybe the individuals involved weren’t ready but Ricky Henry has to be wondering why he didn’t make the change last year.
Previous winners: Kirra Dibb (2023), Emma Manzelmann (2024)
Advanced metrics
Rewind
Have fun.
See you next year.
The Cowboys took another competition point off the Panthers later in the season for a total of three out of four available. Not many teams have done that in the last five years!