Hard work, more hard work and then even some more. That’s how the Cowboys can dig themselves out of an early-season rut, according to star hooker Reece Robson.
Speaking on theFox League podcast, Robson admitted: “We definitely haven’t started the season the way we would have liked to.”
Sitting 14th after eight rounds with three wins and five losses has fallen well short of the expectations on the Cowboys after their stunning 2022 season.
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The three wins haven’t come easy either — a one-point thriller against the Raiders, 24-12 over the Titans and then last week’s two-point win over the Knights.
Cowboys coach Todd Payten called last Saturday’s win “brave” and Robson
“He was happy with the effort areas, I think that’s what he took the most out of the game and reiterated to us in the sheds afterwards,” he said.
“Just the grittiness, especially that last set on the line defending and everyone turning up for each other. It probably wasn’t the most the orthodox set defensively but the boys just kept turning up for each other.”
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Robson said the Cowboys, who were one of the premiership favourites coming into the season, are “still a little while off” their best but believes it won’t take long to turn things around.
“It is frustrating when you’re not getting the points on the board,” Robson conceded.
“We can’t quite put our finger on it at the moment, but we know it’s just going to come down to working hard, and making sure we’re working hard at training because we know the product of our team is that the better we train it translates onto the field on the weekend.
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The 24-year-old admits the team has been “a bit shocked” by their start to the season — and it didn’t take them long to realise it won’t be a case of just picking up where they left off in 2022.
“I think we probably realised that pretty early on,” Robson said after being asked when the team realised something wasn’t quite right.
“We’ve had a pretty rough start to the season (so) we clicked pretty early going ‘we definitely need to turn things around, we can’t keep throwing games away like this.’
“You can’t win the grand final in march, but you can definitely lose it. I guess you sort of start to panic more and more as the weeks go on but I think we’ve had that attitude — not panicking — but knowing we can’t give games up in this competition so we need to give it everything.”
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But Robson denied there any sort of complacency creeping in before the season kicked off.
“We knew it was only going to get tougher this year so I don’t think there was any complacency. We knew it wasn’t just going to happen, we had a really good pre-season and worked really hard,” he said.
A lot of punters tipped the Cowboys to get the wooden spoon in 2022. Instead they slipped under the radar to finish third and fall just one converted try short of the grand final.
It’s a very different story this year — and Robson admitted he could sense a target on the Cowboys’ backs in the opening rounds.
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“I don’t think (that’s) come as a shock to us,” he said.
“Last year we did have a great year but we would’ve caught a few sides off guard a little bit. But we knew that wasn’t going to be the case this year, we knew we weren’t going to be getting any teams taking us lightly.
“We knew we had to be at our best every week and we certainly haven’t started the way we wanted to this year.”
Robson has been one of the Cowboys’ best to start the year but the incredibly humble former-Dragon kept it casual when asked about his own form.
“You sort of look at yourself when you’re losing to try and make sure you’re doing every part you can for the team and making sure you’re getting your job done — I guess that’s pretty much what I focus on each week,” he said.
He’s coming off a breakout season where he was called into the New South Wales extended squad for Origin III — something he says was a “dream come true.”
Robson believes he’s “still a long way off” the calibre of players that play Origin, but a lot of punters would argue that.
He said it was a nice “pat on the back” to earn that call up last season and while it’s “definitely always a goal to represent your state,” but his mind is fixed on getting the Cowboys on track.
