Payten to keep Cowboys job for next year, will help with staff cleanout

The North Queensland Cowboys have decided to give Todd Payten another season to turn things around at the struggling Queensland club, even after he guided the team to – at best – an eleven-win season and no finals.

Club powerbrokers decided to back the 46-year-old helmsman heading into a full season review, where the focus will be on how the struggling Cowboys fell from fifth all the way to twelfth in 2025.

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While many would point the finger directly at Payten – and many did through the season, including this Base writer – it seems like North Queensland’s bosses are happy with the man in the top job and want to see what he can do with more signings, another preseason, and another campaign. Whether that’s the right call or not only remains to be seen.

There will be changes, though, the club has already confirmed: The Cowboys bosses want to take a fine-tooth comb to the rest of the staffing around Payten, including the assistants he brought in to help him. Payten will assist in the decision-making there.

Questions will quickly turn to Payten’s contract, too, with his time currently set to expire at the end of next year.

North Queensland powerbrokers still reportedly see Payten as the man to win them another premiership, though, and so they’ll likely make other changes at roster and staffing levels before turning away from the 46-year-old.

Maybe the only thing that would steer them the other way would be a regression; should the Cowboys slide further down the ladder in 2026 and look to be sucked into a spoon battle, the club chiefs may ask Payten to leave.

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As for how Payten sees the season many would paint as disastrous, he’s stuck to the same line for some weeks: The team he’s trying to build was cruelled by too many injuries to really win football matches.

“No injuries would be great,” he declared when asked what needed to be fixed for the Cowboys.

And – “I’d just like us to be smarter with what we do with the ball.

“Ball control has been a major issue for us… we had a lot of errors. That impacts other parts of the game.

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“Where and how we hand over the ball is really important for us, and we need to build on that over the next two weeks.”

“Once we get through the next few weeks in our reviews, it’s about decompressing a little bit and putting plans in place to make sure we’re not in this position again,” the Cowboys head coach continued.

“It’s easier said than done, there’s a lot of variables that factor into it, but we will be looking at everything and making sure we get it right.”