Cowboys coach Paul Green conceded there was a distinct lack of confidence in his side and hinted at further team changes following a hat-trick of disappointing losses.
North Queensland suffered a 30-12 loss against a committed Raiders side in Townsville on Saturday night, a performance which left Green searching for answers.
“If guys just aren’t doing their job, we've got to find some blokes that can. You can't keep tossing up performances like that and expect to keep your position,” he said.
“Our starts are putting us under pressure, we’re just not consistent enough at the moment.”
Green said the lack of confidence in the club could be traced back to the absence of Johnathan Thurston.
“It's not completely surprising given the changes in the roster and we’ve got some young guys coming in and we lost Johnathan from last year. He was a big leader, guys got a lot of confidence from him," Green said.
Despite the loss, Green believes the team will get back to their winning ways.
“We’ve got enough experience through the team who've been through this before. There's younger guys in there at the moment so that makes it a little bit more difficult," he said.
“They don't have that experience to draw on but we do have plenty of experience there that have been through this and got themselves out of it.”
Morgan puts Cooper in
As was the case against the Sharks and Broncos, poor ball control haunted the Cowboys.
Green knows that so long as that continues, wins will be hard to come by.
“The foundations of the game that we want to be good at we're not doing it for long enough periods in the game and we're not coping well with pressure at the moment,” he said.
Things don’t get much easier for the Cowboys in round five as the in-form Melbourne Storm hit Townsville on Friday night.
