Opinion
Todd Payten needs to be careful with the Jason Taumalolo situation as the saga over the Cowboys lock is starting to mirror Jason Taylor’s ill-fated standoff with Robbie Farah at the Wests Tigers.
With Dolphins coach Wayne Bennett publicly stating his desire to lure Taumalolo south to the Redcliffe expansion club next year, the future of the North Queensland superstar is very much up in the air.
Bennett clearly sees Taumalolo as a gettable target to be a marquee name for the new team’s foundation season.
“If he comes off contract, we would certainly be interested in him,” Bennett told News Corp. “He is like a lot of other players we are interested in.
“Jason is a wonderful player and has been good for a long time. He has done a great job as captain of Tonga so he is highly credentialled.”
They might look like playful creatures but anyone who saw The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode will know that before you know it, dolphins will take over the world, leaving you all at sea.
Payten made many headlines last year in his rookie season in charge at the Cowboys by saying he wanted to use Taumalolo in shorter spurts rather than play him into the ground.
The quality over quantity theory worked well on paper but the 2016 Dally M Medal joint-winner did not have much of an impact in reality as a series of injuries also made it a down season by his extremely high standards.
Assistant coach Dean Young said in the lead-up to Round 1 that the Cowboys planned to go back to Taumalolo playing long minutes at lock this season.
Wayne Bennett will be the first coach of the new Dolphins franchise. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
However, in last Sunday’s 6-4 loss to Canterbury, he was switched to prop before kick-off with Coen Hess going back to the bench and Mitchell Dunn starting at lock and Taumalolo played only 51 minutes for 136 running metres from 15 hit-ups while making 30 tackles.
Not bad numbers but not when you compare it to a couple of years ago when he averaged a career-best 207m per game and would regularly nudge the 300 mark.
And the elephant in the Townsville room is the remaining five years – after this season – of Taumalolo’s lucrative deal, which equates to around $5 million on the table until the end of 2027.
The Tongan powerhouse turns 29 in May and as staggering as it sounds, it could be in the Cowboys’ best interests if they got out of the final five years of his multimillion-dollar deal as he enters his 30s if his production is not going to be as sky-high as his price tag.
But Bennett and the Dolphins will drive a hard bargain when it comes to negotiating how much the Cowboys would have to chip in for them to take Taumalolo off their hands.
Bennett is a master media manipulator as you can see not just from his comments about Taumalolo but whenever there has been conflict – he played the Broncos and Anthony Seibold off a break with the way he controlled the narrative during his controversial departure to South Sydney at the end of 2018.
Payten has clearly been marking his territory in Townsville since he arrived 18 months ago following a successful stint delivering hard truths to the Warriors as an interim coach for half a season.
Taylor did likewise at the Wests Tigers in 2016. He did the club’s bidding by basically forcing a high-priced club legend out the door in Farah, at one point dropping him to reserve grade even though he was the incumbent NSW hooker.
Farah was owed plenty and the Tigers were in such a salary cap mess that they still had to pay a hefty portion – reportedly around $750,000 – of the rest of his contract when the premiership-winning rake switched to Souths for 2017.
The Tigers back Taylor for the grand total of two more matches before he was sacked early in the season as the team, sans Farah, started its campaign with back-to-back floggings.
Robbie Farah says goodbye to the Wests Tigers in 2017 while being surrounded by his loyal teammates. (AAP Image/Paul Miller)
North Queensland are coming off a 15th-placed finish in Payten’s first season at the helm and were beaten at home by wooden spooners Canterbury to kick off 2022.
Payten is contracted until the end of next season so he’s hardly on the hot seat just yet but the next six rounds will be crucial, especially if the Taumalolo sideshow lingers.
They have a soft draw with only no top-four teams from 2021 on the schedule and only two that made the finals – the Roosters in Round 4 and Titans in Round 7, both at home.
Payten has brought in the experienced halfback he wanted in Chad Townsend, pairing him with Tom Dearden at the expense of Scott Drinkwater, and made the gutsy call of switching Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow to fullback and Valentine Holmes to centre after the former Shark was not getting the job done in the No.1 jersey.
But he needs to get more out of Taumalolo or the speculation will fester, particularly with those dangerous Dolphins circling.
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