Catch the full segment on Nine's 100% FOOTY on Monday night with Paul Gallen, Phil Gould and James Bracey debating rugby league's hottest topics. Tune in from 10.10pm AEDT, following all the action of round one!
NRL guru Phil Gould says Cowboys coach Todd Payten was "100 per cent right" in calling out club talisman Jason Taumalolo in a sensational post-match press conference following his side's opening-round loss to the Panthers.
Payten followed his first match in charge of North Queensland, a poor 24-0 loss in Penrith on Saturday, with a strong critique of Taumalolo "cutting corners" in defence.
It caused a significant stir among Cowboys fans and pundits alike, particularly in light of Payten's decision to restrict Taumalolo's minutes in 2021 in a bid to preserve his longevity.
While many were quick to leap to Taumalolo's defence and query the bold call against one of the most respected players in the game, Gould argued Payten was completely justified in his sentiments toward his marquee man.
In the years since club legend Johnathan Thurston's departure from the game, the Cowboys have been in a nose-dive, unable to rediscover the identity that made them a perennial contender in the mid 2000s.
Gould didn't deny Taumalolo's "X-factor" on the field, but he questioned if the lock-forward was realistically a player who could single-handedly drag the North Queenslanders out of the cellar if his game remained on the same trajectory.
"If you're paying a player a million dollars a year in your salary cap, he has to be winning you 70 per cent of your games," Gould said on Nine's 100% Footy. "Can Jason Taumalolo do that? No. He's not that sort of player.
"I will guarantee you, if you went to Todd Payten tomorrow and said we'll take Jason Taumalolo off your hands and we'll give you four players at $250k each, wouldn't they be more value for him now than Jason Taumalolo is in that side?
"I love Jason Taumalolo. Any of the top six sides could pick him up and it may be the difference between them being there on grand final day and winning the competition. He's a real X-factor type player.
"But is he the player that Todd Payten wants now to set a culture at the club and get them out of the cellar and get them playing consistent each week?
"Jason Taumalolo was mighty when he had Johnathan Thurston and those sorts of players playing off the back of what he was creating there. He doesn't have those players there anymore.
"Jason just standing there and running 200-metres, putting his hands on his hips is not going to get it done. That's what he's saying. I'm with Todd Payten on that.
"He made a point. If everyone here defends with Jason Taumalolo's attitude, we're not going to be competitive. And he's 100 per cent right.
"Jason Taumalolo is a brilliant player, but is he the player that is going to get the Cowboys out of the cellar unless he starts to address the own weaknesses in his game, which is not addressed by the media?"
In all Taumalolo featured for just 50 minutes, a significant reduction on his usual game time in recent seasons. He ran for just 71 metres; a pitiful return compared to an average of more than 200 metres per game last season.
Payten has made no secret of his concern over burning out Taumalolo, who still has seven years left on his contract in North Queensland, but his comments in relation to the forward's longevity and his own contract have raised eyebrows.
"Jase is contracted here for seven years. If we cook him, 65-75 minutes a game, in three to four years, what value are we going to get out of him?" Payten said at his post-match press conference on Saturday night.
"This is a long-term decision about Jase's health and my ambition to hold onto the job, I guess."
That was one area Gould believed Payten erred and believed needed to be addressed with his playing group as to not losing the dressing room.
"I think Todd was probably a little inexperienced in speaking about his own career," Gould said.
"Because once coaches start thinking about their own careers and speaking about it that can put players off. So he needs to address that."
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