‘Picking up the phone to rivals’: Big Cowboys reveal as pressure builds on uncontracted coach

The North Queensland Cowboys could soon face a coaching dilemma, as they have yet to decide whether to keep Todd Payten as head coach for the 2027 season.

Appointed as head coach of the Cowboys in 2021, Payten has suffered the highs and lows during his tenure at the club but has been unable to lead them to premiership success.

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Even with a talented roster with the likes of Jeremiah Nanai, Reuben Cotter, Scott Drinkwater and Tom Dearden at his disposal he only holds a winning percentage of 50 per cent (65 wins in 131 matches).

While he is aiming to lead them to success in 2026, he remains uncontracted for next season and his coaching future remains clouded.

This has seen Code Sports journalist David Riccio reveal that a decision by the Cowboys needs to be made sooner rather than later.

“The Cowboys need to start planning for premierships and right now they don’t have a coach next year,” Riccio said.

“Right now, they don’t have a coach next year. You plan for premierships. Your roster build is through knowing who the head coach is and basically this is on repeat from last season.

“When movements started to happen in the coaching circles last year, (with) the Gold Coast Titans and Newcastle Knights and with PNG in the background, the Cowboys will deny this publicly.

“But there were elements of their management picking up their phone to rival coaches to assess the lay of the land.

“It meant they had concerns over Todd. They ultimately stuck with Todd and now we find ourselves in this situation again that they have the most amount of players off-contract in the NRL.

“And again they don’t know who their coach is going forward.”

Foxsports.com.au’s Paul Crawley disagreed with the opinion of Riccio, stating that the Cowboys should wait to see if he gets them playing finals football before a formal decision is made.

“I don’t agree because I think the difference here is that the Cowboys management has made the responsible decision by not handing him a two-year extension like the Dragons did with Flanagan last August,” Crawley said.

“And I think the weekend’s result proved that the Cowboys need to hold off because prior to that they won four straight.

“It could’ve been an easy job to say, Todd’s doing a good job, we can keep him. That performance on the weekend was as bad an NRL performance as we’ve seen in years.

“The longer that they can hold off - they might miss Dean Young - to see if Todd Payten makes the finals or doesn’t make the finals and then they make a choice.

“The one guarantee is that there will be someone left to take that job and the options are limited anyway.

If the Cowboys decide to hold out on making a decision on Payten, they could miss out on the likes of Brad Arthur, Anthony Seibold, Michael Cheika, Ben Hornby, Michael Ennis and newly appointed Dragons interim Dean Young as potential options.

“And they’ll be under pressure to make a decision come October,” Riccio said.

Crawley added, “I believe that waiting is the right thing because if he does get them into the finals than he does deserve an extension. If he doesn’t, he wouldn’t. I think you’ve got to wait.”

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