Gorden Tallis has let loose, slamming the attack of the North Queensland Cowboys after they were upset by the Newcastle Knights in Las Vegas.

Entering the season under immense pressure after failing to reach expectations over the past few years, it couldn’t have been a worse start for the Cowboys.

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Not only did they concede five tries to last year’s wooden spooners, but they were only able to score three of their own and were completely outplayed by their opponents.

“I think they’ll be happy with their effort in defence structurally and they did get caught out (but) I thought their attack was really poor at times,” Tallis said on NRL 360.

“It looked really clunky. Even when they were going wide, they just weren’t on the right routes.

“It’s like they’ve worked really hard on their defence and I thought they were better defensively. They didn’t play square, they went sideways. They didn’t earn the right to go sideways.”

Tallis slams Cowboys attack | 02:50

Respected news journalist Michael Carayannis agreed with the comments made by the former 17-time Queensland Maroons forward.

He also stated that the club’s high-profile representative stars such as five-eighth Tom Dearden and fullback Scott Drinkwater, were nowhere to be seen throughout the contest.

Dearden finished the contest with only one try assist and 69 running metres to his name, while Drinkwater made 52 running metres.

“I thought they were poor coming into a season knowing that their coach is under significant pressure and they put out that in the opening game and I think it was their big guns that let them down,” Carayannis added.

“Drinkwater, Dearden, Reuben Cotter, barely sighted. The best match-up was Jaxon Purdue up against Dane Gagai – I thought that was outstanding.”

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Braith Anasta continued the conversation and stated that the Cowboys may need to shake-up their halves situation in the coming weeks.

“There’s still inconsistency there around Jake Clifford, too,” he said.

“He came up with a nice little kick and a good play but he had a few errors in him and then took the wrong option at the wrong time, a couple of times.”

Carayannis said, “If you look at the start of the game and their start to the second-half, they just missed the jump on both occasions.

“They did well to peg it back in that first-half but that starts the game and the start to the second half, when they had some momentum going into the halftime break, I thought was really, really poor.”

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While the likes of Griffin Neame, Murray Taulagi and Jason Taumalolo looked strong at times during the contest, the team as a whole failed to fire.

Now, they will turn their attention to Round 2 as head coach Todd Payten attempts to retain his job.

“I’m really worried if I’m a Cowboys fan. As Mick said, your coach is under pressure. You need to win football games and you turn up and play like that,” Brent Read added into the discussion.

“I think he was worried before this year to be honest, but unfortunately for him, he’s got a big job ahead of him,” Anasta said.