Paul Green (rugby league)

Paul Green

Personal information
Born	(1972-09-12) 12 September 1972 Queensland
Playing information
Height	167 cm (5 ft 6 in)
Weight	80 kg (180 lb)
Position	Halfback
Club
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1994–98	Cronulla Sharks	95	24	3	0	102
1999–00	North Queensland	35	7	0	0	28
2001–02	Sydney Roosters	20	6	0	1	25
2003	Parramatta Eels	7	0	0	0	0
2004	Brisbane Broncos	5	0	0	0	0
	Total	162	37	3	1	155
Representative
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
1997–01	Queensland	10	1	0	0	4
1997	Australia	2	0	0	0	0
Coaching information
Club
Years	Team	Gms	W	D	L	W%
2014–	North Queensland	53	35	0	18	66

Paul Green is an Australian professional rugby league football coach and former player of the 1990s and 2000s. He is currently the head coach for the North Queensland Cowboys of the National Rugby League. A Queensland State of Origin and Australian international representative halfback, he played for several clubs throughout his career and won the Rothmans Medal in 1995.

Playing career

Early years

Green was a Brisbane junior and captained the Queensland Colts before winning Brisbane Rugby League's Rothmans Medal in 1993 while playing with the Easts club.

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks

Green followed his Brisbane coach John Lang to Sydney's Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, turning heads with the maturity and skill of his play at halfback. In 1995, he won the ARL's prestigious Rothmans Medal award as best and fairest player. Following Cronulla’s defection to Super League, Green was selected as a reserve in the ANZAC Test in 1997 before representing Queensland as a replacement in three Super League Tri-Series matches. At the end of the season, he was chosen as halfback in the return Test against New Zealand in September but an injury kept him out of Australia’s tour of Great Britain. After missing just one match in four seasons, a serious shoulder injury restricted Green to just four matches in 1998.

North Queensland Cowboys

Green signed with North Queensland for 1999. That season he became the club's first State of Origin representative, when he was selected as Queensland's halfback for game 2. Out of favour with coach Tim Sheens who preferred the halfback partnership of Scott Prince and Noel Goldthorpe, the Cowboys sacked Green midway through the 2000 season for allegedly negotiating with other clubs while still under contract and he turned out for the Roosters in 2001 (Green subsequently won an out-of-court settlement against the North Queensland club). Green’s 2002 campaign was put on hold when he injured his knee in the season opener against Souths and he moved to Parramatta in 2003.

Brisbane Broncos

Returning to Brisbane, he made five appearances for the Broncos during the representative season before retiring.

Coaching career

After his retirement in 2004, Green worked as a specialist coach with the Brisbane Broncos - mainly working with the clubs halves & hookers - from 2005, a position he held until 2008. From 2009 Green was promoted to an assistant coach of the Brisbane Broncos before moving onto feeder club Wynum Manly in 2010, working as an assistant. Green coached the Wynnum Manly Seagulls in the 2011 and 2012 Queensland Cups. He coached the 2012 Queensland Residents side. He won back-to-back premierships with Wynum Manly during this time.

In 2012, Green was appointed head coach of representative team, the Queensland Residents, consisting of the best players and coach from the Queensland Cup competition. His team beat the New South Wales Residents a team consisting of the best players and coach from the New South Wales cup competition.

In 2013 he was appointed as the head coach of the Sydney Roosters Toyota Cup team and an assistant coach to the National Rugby League side. The Sydney Roosters won the 2013 NRL premiership while Green's NYC side made the preliminary finals in the Under 20's competition.

During the buildup to NRL Grand Final week in 2015, Bennett explained he held Green's coaching career back. With the inaugural season of the under 20s competition set to get underway, Bennett said the North Queensland mentor was in line for the role as coach. Ultimately it went to Anthony Griffin.

“I always knew (Paul Green) was going to be a good coach,” Bennett said.

“I probably held him back a little bit when the under 20s came in because he was probably in line for that job but I thought he needed to do a little bit more work in development because he’s a good teacher.”

North Queensland Cowboys

Within the space of two seasons Green became the Cowboys most successful coach. In 2014 Green commenced his NRL head coaching career with the North Queensland Cowboys, claiming the club's first title at the inaugural NRL Auckland Nines, defeating the Brisbane Broncos in the Grand Final. Green took the Cowboys to a whisker of the top 4 finish in 2014, finishing the season with 15 wins, North Queensland finished the regular season in fifth place. During the season Green made some decisions which critics say defined the Cowboys quality season, the decisions included shifting Halfback Michael Morgan to the Fullback, switching captain Johnathan Thurston from five-eighth back to the Halfback position & giving young gun Jason Taumalolo a spot in the starting line-up.

The 2014 finals series saw the Cowboys eliminated in controversial fashion once again, after defeating the eighth placed Brisbane Broncos 32-20 in week one of the finals series, North Queensland traveled to Sydney to take on the Roosters in which they lost 31-30. A last minute try to Johnathan Thurston which would have led to a victory was disallowed by the video referees. After trialing 30-0 in the early stages of the first half, Green said in the post match press conference that the team should not lick their wounds over the controversial call which ended their season as their start was not good enough to deserve the win. Green finished the season coaching the Cowboys to 16 wins from 26 starts.

Green broke records with the Cowboys in 2015. After the club started their season with three loses in a row, Green then went on to take the club to 11 wins in a row. The Cowboys finished the year with their most wins ever recorded within a regular season with 17 which gave the club their first top 4 finish since 2007.

North Queensland lost 16-12 against the Brisbane Broncos in week 1 of the finals series before putting in the most clinical display from a single club all year in the next weeks semi-final against Cronulla in which North Queensland won 39-0, booking their first preliminary final since 2007. The Cowboys beat the Melbourne Storm 32-12 in the Preliminary Final booking their place in the 2015 NRL Grand Final against the Brisbane Broncos, their first since Grand Final in a decade, since 2005 where they finished runners-up. The Cowboys claimed their maiden premiership with a 17-16 win over the Brisbane Broncos.

In December 2015, Green was offered the vacant head coaching role of the Queensland State of Origin side. Green ultimately turned down the job to concentrate solely on the Cowboys.

External links

• Paul Green at the Former Origin Greats website.
• Paul Green stats at rugbyleagueproject.com
• Paul Green at yesterdayshero.com.au
• Paul Green at nrlstats.com