Fed-up North Queensland coach Todd Payten has labelled his players ‘immature’ after the Cowboys relinquished an early lead in Friday’s 46-18 loss to the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
The Cowboys led 10-0 after 19 minutes but conceded the next eight tries against Wayne Bennett’s Bunnies to slump to their fourth consecutive loss.
“We made a mistake there at the 25-minute mark, a poor pass, a dropped ball, and then compounded that by not defending our line,” Payten fumed at his post-match press conference.
“We’re just an immature team at the moment, just not willing to pay the price in the tough parts of the game for lone enough.”
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Asked if he is growing frustrated with his squad, who have not won a game since late May, Payten replied: “Yeah very frustrated … it seems to be the same people consistently over 15-16 rounds and then yeah, we don’t reconnect and get together as a team, we sort of disintegrate and don’t talk.”
“It’s not good enough.”
Luck also went against the Cowboys after referee Matt Cecchin missed Rabbitohs prop Liam Knight’s late hit on Tom Dearden early in the first-half.
Knight was later placed on report, but the non-call proved costly as Cowboys interchange player Heilum Luki was sin-binned for a high tackle in the next set of the contest.
The Cowboys were trailing 22-12 at the time and conceded a further eight points when they were down to 12 men.
“I saw the ref pointed at it, I’ve seen it penalised before and the next set they roll down the park and Heilum (Luki) gets 10 in the bin,” Payten said.
“So if they penalise that it’s a different ball game, I’m not saying the result would be any different but it’s a different ball game.”
The Cowboys sit in 11th position on the NRL ladder with eight games remaining, on equal points with Cronulla, who occupy eight spot.
Payten said making the NRL finals is still ‘possible’ but conceded the Cowboys must stop ‘punching ourselves in the face’ in order to feature in September.
