North Queensland Coach Todd Payten has been named the 2022 NRL Dally M Coach of the Year at tonight’s awards ceremony in Sydney.
After winning only seven games and finish 15th on the ladder in his first season as Head Coach of the Cowboys in 2021, Payten has led a stunning turnaround in North Queensland — guiding a previously unheralded side to third spot on the ladder at the end of the regular season and earning a home Preliminary Final for the first time in club history.
The 18 wins accrued by the Cowboys this year are more than in Payten’s two previous seasons as head coach combined, while the former Premiership-winning forward’s temperament and coaching style has done wonders for the team with several players earning representative debuts following breakout campaigns.
When Payten first came on board with the Cowboys at the end of the 2020 season, the coach put forward this mission statement: “Developing the players within our club to be good footballers and good men along with playing a style of football our members and supporters can be proud of will be my main focus.”
Fast-forward two seasons and it’s clear Payten has certainly delivered on that promise in spades in 2022, reflecting last week with pride on what his team had achieved this year.
“We weren’t supposed to make the finals; we weren’t supposed to make it out of the bottom four of the whole comp, and we were 25 minutes short of a Grand Final,” he said after the 24-20 loss ended their season. “We have a good foundation.
If we don’t fall in love with ourselves moving forward, and we continue to work hard and want to get better, we will be back here again.
Cowboys coach Todd Payten
Payten becomes the first Cowboys coach to win the Dally M NRL Coach of the Year in the club’s history, clinching the award ahead of finalists Panthers coach Ivan Cleary, Roosters coach Trent Robinson and Sharks coach Craig Fitzgibbon.
