Johnathan Thurston, in between jabbing away at Paul Gallen on the Shark Park sidelines, was left speechless.
Two weeks later, the Cowboys icon is still slightly lost for words. His trademark Gatling gun cackle does a lot of the work.
“It was a beaaaaaaauty,” Thurston laughs from Townsville, the scene of Friday’s grand final qualifier against a Parramatta pack at its best when giving the ball extended airtime.
“The vision … the skill … the timing … honestly, I’m still in awe of it.”
It was Jason Taumalolo’s spiralled bullet across four North Queensland teammates, three Cronulla defenders, 20 metres of open pasture and onto the chest of Peta Hiku.
It was, in one Steeden-shaped nutshell, the latest phase of Taumalolo’s remarkable, and arguably underrated, career.
Picture perfect: The evolution of Jason Taumalolo’s passing game.Credit:NRL.com
Until mid-March, chatter right across the game centred on where Taumalolo’s career was headed. The tip was out of Townsville.
After 11 years, many of them as one of the most dynamic middle ball-runners ever seen in rugby league, Todd Payten’s plans for the man on a 10-year, $10 million contract were being scrutinised at every turn.
But now, at age 28, ball-playing has been added to Taumalolo’s previous bash and barge remit, and Payten is owed an apology or two.
Champion Data has Taumalolo touching the ball 20.2 times a game in 2022 – more than last year’s average of 18 possessions but otherwise on par with his past five seasons.
But Taumalolo’s 138 passes (almost six a game) this year are easily the most of his career, as are the five line-break assists and three try-assists, all while playing six to eight fewer minutes per game than previous years.
The Cowboys are infinitely more dangerous for it.
“It came from a conversation we had where I wanted him to use some shape around him to get a quick play-the-ball,” Payten says.
“Teams zero in on him to try and slow him down. So if you can take some defenders away from him, that allows him to do that. Then, if he can find a pass and gets his hands on the ball early enough, he can double up on his plays.
“He might play short for someone one play and then the next play he gets on the front foot, which makes him harder to handle.
“It’s something we’ve encouraged him to do and it makes a real difference to the way we play.”
Payten’s eureka moment came while plenty were still wondering aloud about his relationship with his co-captain.
Peachy perfect: Griffin Neame goes over thanks to Jason Taumalolo.
It came in round three at Suncorp Stadium. Taumalolo spied Keenan Palasia’s planted feet and piloted young prop Griffin Neame through a gap in Brisbane’s defence that by all rights, wasn’t really there to begin with.
Plenty more have followed since, the threat doubling in a defender’s mind given it is now another string to Taumalolo’s bow.
Payten is at pains to point out Taumalolo is not the only Cowboys forward encouraged to try their hand with what he dubs “measured offloads”.
“We’re not just focused through what Jase does in that space. We’re certainly not a one-trick pony at the moment.”
Certainly not. But none of Payten’s other ponies, or throughout the NRL for that matter, are quite as destructive as 115 kilos of Taumalolo.
Preserving a body that’s been battered through 235 NRL games and two broken hands last year didn’t come into the coach’s thinking either.
“It’s just thinking; ‘how do we improve him and improve us as a team?’”
Thurston’s happy to claim it as an added bonus all the same, considering five years remain on Taumalolo’s contract and his 24 games this season are the most he’s played since signing the deal.
“When the club signed him for $10 million a year, everyone was blowing up,” he says.
“‘What are youse thinking?’
Jason Taumalolo is back on top, again, after more than a decade of NRL.Credit:Getty
“Jase is big-boned, so he’s been able to handle those rigours through the middle. Physically, he can still do those big-carry games.
“But this new way he’s playing makes him so dangerous. When he’s got the ball in two hands, he’s putting doubt in the defender’s mind.
“And if he gets a one-on-one opportunity, he’s still using his feet and his strength because who can stop him in that situation?”
And if the Cowboys need it, Taumalolo the ballplayer still has the Beast Mode switch in him.
After that pass for Hiku against the Sharks in week one of the finals proved the highlight of an already fine first stint in the middle, Taumalolo was treated to an 11-minute break.
And then he did his best to replicate one-time NFL wrecking ball Marshawn Lynch for the next 33 minutes of the longest NRL match played since the 2010 Tigers-Roosters finals epic.
With a thriller in the balance and lactic acid levels rising, Taumalolo doubled his per minute output for touches, runs, metres and post-contact metres. Only then did he plunge over for the 79th-minute try that sent it to golden point.
“And you watch the lead-up to Val Holmes’ field goal,” Thurston says.
“That was [Taumalolo’s] 15-17 metre run with a quick play-the-ball so the defenders got nowhere Val.
“He said; ‘give me the ball’. Jase’s footy knowledge and understanding of that balance – when to run, when to pass and what his team needs at a point in the game – that’s his real development.
“We always knew he was going to be a great footballer. This is the next phase of that.”
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