Quick Facts
Biography
Paul Green (born 19 September 1972) 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 for Australia as a reserve in the 1997 ANZAC Test 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 position, 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. This made Green the first coach in history to defeat the Brisbane Broncos in a Grand Final, a team whom had a perfect record going into the game with 6 wins from 6 attempts.
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.
On February 22 2016, Green coached the Cowboys to their first World Club Championship victory defeating the Leeds Rhinos 34-4. In the regular NRL season, Green would coach the Cowboys to win their first five home games in a row, a club record. North Queensland finished the regular season in fourth place on the ladder. In week one of the finals the club lost to the Melbourne Storm 16-10 before defeating the Brisbane Broncos 26-20 in a 90-minute thriller in the Semi-Finals in a match rated the best of the season. Unfortunately Green and the Cowboys fell short in the preliminary finals losing to the Cronulla Sharks 32-20, falling just one game short of a second consecutive Grand Final. Green coached the Cowboys to their best ever defensive season in the NRL in 2016, conceding the least amount of points in club history with just 355 in the regular season, an average of 14.79 points per game.