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Leilua braces to face old club after mid-season switch to Cowboys

(Photo by Jason McCawley/Getty Images)

Sunday’s clash with Wests Tigers is the third and final leg of a significant home stand for Todd Payten’s North Queensland side, with the coach fully aware of the path ahead to the NRL finals.

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Following split results against Brisbane and Cronulla, the last-placed Tigers travel to face the second-placed Cowboys in Townsville, before Payten’s men hit the road for a string of three away games.

A wary Payten said the Tigers, with whom he won the 2005 premiership with, will play “with nothing to lose” and their own performance is imperative to garnering momentum at the back end of the season.

“We expect them to throw the ball around and play with a little bit of risk,” Payten said of the Tigers.

“It’s an important game for us this week – we go into three away trips back-to-back.

“We’ve manipulated our training and travel schedule around this three week period … We’ve spoken about the schedule and the last seven weeks and how important it is for us to maintain momentum.

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“And we’ve given ourselves an opportunity to go on a run, or take a shot at finals football, but we’ve still got some work to do.”

Many within the club will have one eye on their forthcoming schedule, but one Cowboy solely focused on Sunday’s clash is former Tigers second-rower Luciano Leilua.

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The 26-year-old completed a mid-season switch north during the international window, debuting off the bench in the Cowboys’ 40-26 derby win over the Broncos.

He made 56 appearances for the joint-venture club between 2020 and 2022, scoring 13 tries in his tenure.

But Leilua’s received glowing comments from his coach since moving north and said he’s focused on rewarding Payten’s faith in him.

“I’ve got to sort of pay him back,” Leilua told AAP earlier in July.

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“He’s given me the opportunity to come up here, I’ve got to play for him, for the organisation and for the boys.

“I’m just doing my part and if I can make Todd happy, that just comes with it.”

Tigers skipper James Tamou will line up for his 300th NRL game against the Cowboys, who he played 170 games for and won a premiership with in 2015.

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J
JW 15 minutes ago
Let's be real about these All Blacks

I didn't really get the should tone from it, but maybe because I was just reading it as my own thoughts.


What I read it as was examples of how they played well enough in every game to be able to win it.


Yeah I dunno if Ben wouldn't see it that way (someone else would for sure need to point it out to him though), I'm more in the Ben not appreciating that those close losses werent one off scenarios camp. Sure you can look at dubious decisions causing them to have to play with 14 or 13 men at the death as viable reasons but even in the games they won without such difficulties they made a real struggle of it (compared to how good some of their first half play was). This kind of article where you trying to point out the 3 losses really would most likely have been wins only really makes sense/works when your other performances make those 3 games (or endings) stand out.


There might have been a sentence here and there to ensure some good comment numbers but when he's signing off the article by saying things like ..

Whilst these All Blacks aren’t blowing teams off the park like during the 2010s, they are nuggety and resourceful and don’t wilt. They are prepared to win the hard way, accumulating points by any means necessary.

and..

The other top sides in the world struggled to put them away. France and South Africa both could have well been defeated on home soil.

I don't really see it. Always making sure people are upto date with the SH standing/perspective! NZ went through some tough times with so many different perspectives and reasons why, but then it was.. amusing how.. behind everyone was once they turned a corner. More of these 'unfortunate' results returned against SA and France at the start of the RWC which made it extra tasty to catch other teams out when they did bring it. So that created some 'conscious' perspective that I just kept going and sharing re thoughts on similar predicaments of other teams, I had been really confident that Wallabies displays vs NZ were real, that the Argentines can backup their thing against Aus and SA (and so obviously the rest), and current one is that England are actually consistent and improving with their attack (which everyone should get onboard with), and I'm expecting a more dominant display against Japan (even though they should have more of their experienced internationals for this one) that highlights further growth from July. 👍

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