Sad news: It has been officially revealed that the head coach of the Queensland Cowboys will be terminating his contract.

Sad news: It has been officially revealed that the head coach of the Queensland Cowboys will be terminating his contract.

Todd Payten, the coach of the Cowboys, criticized his team’s lack of physicality and claimed that just one player on the team could be proud of their season when it ended on Saturday night.

North Queensland was completely overwhelmed in a 44-12 thumping by the two-time incumbent premiers, who they had to defeat in order to advance to the finals.

Payten said that backrower Luciano Leilua was the only one of his players that was willing to fight in Penrith, calling him dirty at full time.

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“The only real bloke I saw standing up physically after 20 minutes in that first period was Luc. When you’re playing a good physical team and you show any sign of weakness, they get real hungry,” he remarked.

“We experienced shell shock. The difficult thing to witness was the boys staring at each other, waiting for someone else to step in when we needed to work as a team and fight together.

“It was really, really disappointing and difficult to take that we had everything to play for going into halftime, and to be put on the back foot and not show any real resolve.”

“No matter who you play for, having 17 plays inside your own 20 for five tries is not good enough at the NRL level.”

“After 27 weeks, we’re going to watch the finals because we didn’t stop trying enough,” the speaker said.

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The Cowboys placed third in the previous campaign and nearly made it to the championship game, but they dropped back to 11th in 2023.

We all know how talented we are and how much work has gone into it, so there are a lot of reasons why I’m sad. Payten added.

It’s disheartening that after finishing in the top eight five or six weeks earlier, we dropped out.

“I won’t make excuses; ultimately, regardless of the players on the team, we didn’t fight hard enough to stop attempts, which is why we’re watching the finals.”