How Green’s fierce desire to overcome odds steered Cowboys to glory


Paul Green’s life in rugby league was driven by proving doubters wrong.

In a sport dominated by large, musclebound behemoths, he was usually the smallest player on the field but his competitiveness stood tall.

Green’s death in Brisbane on Thursday was one of those tragic moments we’ve unfortunately had a few times this year in the Australian sporting landscape.

Like cricket legends Shane Warne and Andrew Symonds, it just doesn’t seem right that someone who was an elite athlete does not live well into old age.

Tragedies strike us all and whether you’re rich and famous, or happened to be a professional sportsperson, does not make a difference, but it’s still a shock when it happens.

Green came to Cronulla as part of the club’s rejuvenation in 1994 when the club looked north of the Queensland border to bring John Lang in to coach the team and Shane Richardson to make it more professional.

They brought with them a little halfback who would solve their problem with the No.7 jersey, which had been worn by several players with limited success since the retirement three years earlier of Barry Russell, another diminutive playmaker who had won the Rothmans Medal when the Sharks had made the finals in 1988.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - 1996:  Paul Green of the of the Sharks offloads the ball during the the ARL Preliminary Final match between the Manly Warringah Sea Eagles and the Cronulla Sharks at the Sydney Football Stadium 1996, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Getty Images)

Paul Green at the Sharks in the preliminary final of 1996. (Photo by Getty Images)

Green quickly established himself as a half who would not be pushed around by bigger opponents and one who could dart around to create breaks or kick his team out of trouble or into try-scoring opportunities.

With the club winning the reserve grade and under 21 premierships that year, the Sharks had names like Mat Rogers, David Peachey, Adam Dykes, Nathan Long, Craig Greenhill, Aaron Raper and Adam Ritson flowing through the ranks.

Despite being just his second year in the big league, the ‘95 season was Green’s finest. 

In a year when the sport was torn apart by the breakout of the Super League war, the Cronulla halfback was adjudged the “best and fairest” of all in an era where the Rothmans Medal, adjudged by the referees, was considered the top individual honour in the game ahead of the media-voted Dally M Medal.

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After being at the forefront of three successive, but ultimately ill-fated, finals campaigns at the Sharks, he was lured back to the Sunshine State by the Cowboys with a lucrative offer.

He became their first Origin representative but unfortunately Green’s time at the club was cut short in his second season.

North Queensland needed a saviour, a marquee star to lift the team out of the doldrums but his strength was his ability to get the best out of others, not be the main man.

Green revived his career at the Roosters but just six minutes into the first match of the 2002 season his knee buckled and his year was over. The club went on to win the Grand Final that year with Craig Wing at halfback and he switched to the Eels.

It looked like his NRL career was over in 2003 after seven matches for Parra when he suffered multiple facial fractures that needed plates inserted into his head in an intricate surgical procedure but you can’t keep a tough little halfback down.

After returning to the Queensland Cup with Wynnum, he was called up by the Broncos in 2004 and played the final five games of the season before finally hanging up the boots.

Maroons coach Paul Green looks on

(Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Despite representing the Maroons 10 times and playing a couple of Tests for the Australian Super League team, Green’s achievements as a player were overshadowed by his coaching career.

After answering Wayne Bennett’s call to fill in as a player, he started out as a specialist halves assistant with the Broncos before finding success as a head coach in the Queensland Cup at Wynnum, winning the competition in 2011 and ‘12.

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Green became the first former Cowboy to coach the team in 2014 when he beat out the likes of Kevin Walters, Brad Arthur, Trent Barrett and Trent Barrett as Neil Henry’s replacement.

He was known for his intensity as a coach and a love of statistical analysis. He came up with his own way of working out how quickly a play-the-ball was, judging the time from the first contact on an attacking player to the moment they clear the ruck.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - OCTOBER 04: Cowboys coach Paul Green is sprayed by his players with champagne after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final match between the Brisbane Broncos and the North Queensland Cowboys at ANZ Stadium on October 4, 2015 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Cowboys coach Paul Green is sprayed by his players with champagne after winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Their first season under Green ended in heartache when they lost their semi-final 31-30 to the Roosters when a Johnathan Thurston try after the final siren was denied by a marginal call from the video referee.

They had been eliminated the year before by Cronulla 20-18 after the Sharks had scored one of their tries on the seventh tackle while in 2012 they had gone down to Manly after a Kieran Foran knock-on was overlooked in the lead-up to a Michael Oldfield try.

The Cowboys were engulfed with a sense of gloom about refereeing decisions going against them and that they would never get to that elusive first premiership.

Green’s message to his team, and publicly, was clear – stop blaming the refs and take control of your own destiny. He said the Cowboys needed to change their mindset or they would forever be the victims.

Premiership-winning five-eighth Michael Morgan summed it up on Triple M Brisbane when he said Green made the players accountable for the results.

“Something that Greeny brought up when he first got there was what people said about us. He made us look in the mirror and say, ‘what do we think about ourselves? What do other people think of us? And who do we want to stand for as a club?’ Like I said, there was no coincidence the success we started to have after he arrived,” he said.

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“He brought a very strong-minded mentality to the group. He used to say, ‘Don’t be the first to blink with the opposition’ – so you hang in there for as long as you need to and it was all about being mentally tough and getting through things. He really reshaped and rebuilt the club once he got here.

“You think you know everything but he just opened up a whole new world to the actual knowledge of the game for me. Never been able to thank him enough.”

North Queensland Cowboys celebrate winning the 2015 NRL Grand Final

(AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

In the 2015 finals they got off to a rocky start with a loss to Brisbane but after finishing third, they were still in the hunt and proceeded to exorcise their Sharks demons with a 39-0 shut-out in Townsville before travelling to Melbourne to upset the Storm 32-12.

Written off in many quarters against Brisbane in the Grand Final, the Cowboys hung tough with big brother in the first half to trail by two but botched a couple of opportunities in the second half before Morgan’s sublime flick pass for Kyle Feldt to score in the last minute sent the game to extra time.

When Thurston landed the wobbly field goal to record the NRL’s only golden-point Grand Final victory, the elation on Green’s face in the coaches box as he hugged, squeezed and engulfed his assistants will live on forever in Cowboys folklore and in premiership history as one of those magical moments of unbridled joy that only come when you triumph despite enormous odds.

2015 NRL Grand Final - Broncos v Cowboys

Paul Green celebrates his finest moment as a coach, North Queensland’s 2015 Grand Final win with Johnathan Thurston. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

And that’s what Green did. Whether on the playing field or as a coach, he made up for his lack of size and strength with skill, intensity and a determination to overcome the odds.

That has been borne out in many of the tributes that have flowed in the hours since his untimely passing at the age of 49 on Thursday morning. Queensland Police issued a statement to say there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding his death.

“He was just an incredible competitor,” former Sharks teammate Mat Rogers said in an AAP interview. “There was nothing of him and he just never took a backward step.”

Cowboys chairman Lewis Ramsey said “We will forever remember Paul as one of the greatest contributors in Cowboys history.” 

Green is survived by his wife, Amanda, and their children, daughter Emerson, and son Jed.

Help is available to anyone experiencing mental health problems, 24 hours a day, by phoning Lifeline on 13 11 14

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