The 2024 NRL regular season is still a few weeks away but there’s plenty to discuss over a schooner or two between now and then.
Instead of recycling the usual clichéd pre-season rhetoric, I’m picking out some genuine NRL talking points until Round 1 kicks off in Las Vegas.
From team list changes, positional battles and shapes on my wish-list, let’s dive into some 2024 NRL Pre-Season Pub Talk.
Change in the North
Confirmation of a new-look leadership group in North Queensland is just one of a few changes we could see at the Cowboys in NRL season 2024.
It’s a bold and positive move from Todd Payten to annoint Tom Dearden (22 years old) and Reuben Cotter (25) as co-captains effective immediately, and it points towards a changing of the guard at the club.
Unseating Jason Taumalolo as an on-field captain is one thing, but to also replace a 33-year old Chad Townsend – in a pre-season where Jake Clifford has returned to the club – perhaps hints at further change for the Cowboys this year.
It’s been too long since we wrote about Clifford here at RLWriters.
Jase once described himself as the original settler of Clifford Island and I own a few prime acres on there, too.
Without luck in the first few years of his NRL carrer, I said this in the lead up to Clifford’s 2022 NRL season at Newcastle:
“At 24 years of age and with 55 NRL games to his name, we haven’t seen the best of Clifford as a halfback just yet. All the qualities are there but he needs time to combine with the spine players around him – something he hasn’t been afforded at either North Queensland or Newcastle. With Jayden Brailey injured and Mitchell Pearce gone for 2022, this doesn’t feel like the year Clifford finally gets the support he needs which could spell a long season for the young half. I’m just hoping people don’t turn on him in the process.”
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Turn on him, they did.
But after a year in the UK Super League, Clifford is back at the North Queensland Cowboys and finds himself in a competitve roster heading into the 2024 NRL season.
Clifford’s NRL return comes at an interesting time.
Fresh off a relatively poor 2023 campaign, Todd Payten appears more likely to consider changes in what has been an otherwise fairly steady roster. As well as the leadership group, one of those changes is the potential elevation of Clifford into the starting No.7 jumper.
Let’s start with the incumbent.
Reports began circling earlier last week that Townsend was “playing for his future” at the Cowboys this year. No prizes for spotting the clickbait, but throw in his ‘demotion’ as co-captain and there might be something in this headline.
With 242 NRL games under the belt, Chad Townsend is a proven and consistent performer. A traditional halfback who plays one-off the ruck through the middle of the field, Townsend is the metronome to which the Cowboys play in attack:
Townsend’s role as conductor allows Dearden and Scott Drinkwater to play either side of the field in the second- or third-layer of a shift. And while he doesn’t offer much of a running game himself (more on that below), Townsend consistently creates the space for North Queensland’s running threats out wide.
He’s also a very efficient general play kicker. Per NRL.com, only a career-best Shaun Johnson registered more total kick metres than Townsend’s 10,824m last season – a number that cannot be understated in the modern game.
By the Eye Test however, there’s an argument Townsend regressed a little last year. He’s still confidently the first-choice halfback going into Round One, but Clifford’s arrival makes for some interesting competition.
Unlike Townsend though, Clifford is not a traditional, pivot-playing half.
He struggled with the responsibility of it early in his NRL career and is clearly more comfortable wide of the ruck where he can use his running game:
Townsend doesn’t really need to threaten the defence like this in his current role, but speed kills in rugby league and Clifford’s running game is a point of difference.
It would requre a few changes to the way North Queensland set up in attack, but the thought of Clifford linking with the Cowboys current spine is appealing given the momentum this pack can generate through the middle.
Clifford is also a very accomplished kicker of the ball.
With an NRL kicking average of 299.5 metres per game, Clifford is putting up good numbers for a 67-gamer. He’s got a huge boot in yardage and an accurate one in good ball;
These actions lend themselves to the speed and aerial targets North Queensland currently employ out wide, in particular Murray Taulagi and Valentine Holmes on either edge.
The Cowboys clearly thought something similar when they decided to bring Clifford back, but when they plan on making that transition is another question.
We can’t expect Clifford to replicate what Townsend currently does in this Cowboys attack and a role off the bench is more likely this season, but I’m not ruling anything out.
Sunday’s co-captaincy announcement is proof that Payten is prepared to make the tough decisions, specifically with an eye to the future.
A spine of Drinkwater (26 years old), Dearden (22), Clifford (26), Reece Robson (25) and Cotter (25) is an appealing one for Cowboys fans moving forward, and it might well be the one North Queensland finish the 2024 NRL regular season with.
Clifford is not the only one applying positional pressure leading into Round One; the Cowboys have backrowers falling out of their pockets and need to find a balance between Luciana Leilua, Heilum Luki, Jeremiah Nanai and Kulikefu Finefeuiaki on the edges.
How Taumalolo is used (and how he responds to losing the captaincy) will be another intriguing narrative worth following.
The pieces of a genuine finals calibre side are in this Cowboys roster somewhere, and I don’t think Payten is far from completing the puzzle.