The North Queensland Toyota Cowboys have agreed to a two-year contract extension with NRL Head Coach Todd Payten, running through the end of the 2028 season.<\/p>\n
Currently in his sixth season as Cowboys Head Coach, Payten\u2019s extension will see him surpass Paul Green as the longest-tenured coach in club history.<\/p>\n
Heading into Sunday\u2019s clash against the Warriors, Payten has led the Cowboys in 146 games, which is 15 behind Graham Murray\u2019s tally of 161 and 22 behind Green\u2019s 168.<\/p>\n
Payten guided North Queensland to its first-ever home preliminary final appearance in 2022 and the second week of the finals in 2024.<\/p>\n
North Queensland sit ninth after 15 Rounds, but its eight wins are just one behind the second-placed Warriors.<\/p>\n
Cowboys Football Club Chairman David Myles said he was delighted to announce Payten\u2019s extension.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuccessful organisations don’t make short-sighted decisions and as a Group we have taken the time to carefully assess the direction our club is heading,\u201d Myles said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver recent months we have seen significant growth in both our football program and the leadership of Todd.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile results are always important, our decision was based on much more than the ladder. We have seen clear improvement and alignment around standards, accountability, culture and the long-term direction of our club.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Board is confident Todd is the right person to lead our club into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Payten said he was excited to remain in the region he loves.<\/p>\n
\u201cNorth Queensland is home for my family and I\u2019m thrilled to be able to extend for another two seasons,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the club and the region because of the people within it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am grateful to be leading this group of young men and we are committed to bringing the second premiership to North Queensland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Payten said he was equally excited by the improvement the NRL squad has shown over the opening half of the season as well as the strength of the club\u2019s pathways system.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe depth of our squad has been tested this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have given NRL debuts to Liam Sutton and Xavier Kerrisk as well as club debuts to Reed Mahoney, Soni Luke, Matt Lodge, Ethan King and Wiremu Grieg.<\/p>\n
\u201cJake Clifford, Thomas Mikaele, Braidon Burns, Heilum Luki and Soni Luke are playing what I believe is the best football of their careers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also have an exciting group pushing up from underneath the NRL squad highlighted by results in the NRLQ and Mal Meninga Cup competitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur club is well positioned for success this season and into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The North Queensland Toyota Cowboys have agreed to a two-year contract extension with NRL Head Coach Todd Payten,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-487085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}