Paul Green

Paul Gregory Green (12 September 1972 – 11 August 2022) was an Australian professional rugby league football coach, best known for taking the North Queensland Cowboys to the NRL premiership in 2015, and a professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1990s and 2000s.

He captained the Queensland Colts before winning Brisbane Rugby League's Rothmans Medal in 1993 while playing for the Easts Tigers.

Green's Tigers lost the 1993 BRL Grand Final 18–12 to Western Suburbs, despite Green scoring a try for the Eastern Suburbs side.

In 1994, Green followed his Easts' coach John Lang to Sydney's Cronulla-Sutherland, turning heads with the maturity and skill of his play at.

In his rookie season in the NSWRL, Green played 24 games.

He played for Cronulla-Sutherland, North Queensland Cowboys, Sydney Roosters, Parramatta Eels and the Brisbane Broncos, winning the Rothmans Medal in 1995.

He was a Queensland State of Origin and Australian international representative halfback.

In 1995, he backed up his solid debut season by winning the ARL's prestigious Rothmans Medal (which has since become the Dally M Medal) 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.

In 1999, Green joined the North Queensland Cowboys and was the starting halfback for most of the year.

That season he became the club's first State of Origin representative, when he was selected as Queensland's halfback for Game 2 of the series.

In 2000, Green fell out of favour with coach Tim Sheens who preferred the halves' partnership of Scott Prince and Noel Goldthorpe.

Despite this, Green once again represented Queensland.

The Cowboys then sacked Green midway through the season for allegedly negotiating with other clubs while still under contract.

Green would subsequently win an out-of-court settlement against the club.

In 2001, Green returned to Sydney, joining the Sydney Roosters.

That season he played 19 games, starting 17 of them at halfback and earned another Origin recall, playing in all three games in Queensland's series win.

In 2002, Green injured his knee in the Roosters' opening game against the South Sydney Rabbitohs, ruling him out for the whole of the Roosters' premiership-winning season.

In 2003, Green joined the Parramatta Eels.

After starting the first 7 games at halfback, Green fractured his cheekbone which ended his season.

Green returned to Queensland in 2004, signing with the Brisbane Broncos.

After spending most of the season in the Queensland Cup, he made five appearances for the Broncos towards the end of the season before retiring.

After his playing retirement in 2004, Green began his coaching career in 2005 as a specialist coach with the Brisbane Broncos, mainly working with the club's halves and hookers.

This continued until 2008, and in 2009 he was promoted to be an assistant coach of the Brisbane Broncos.

Green moved on to feeder club Wynnum Manly Seagulls in 2010, coaching them in the 2011 and 2012 Queensland Cups, winning back-to-back premierships.

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

In 2013, he was appointed head coach of the Sydney Roosters Toyota Cup Under 20s team and an assistant coach to the NRL side.

The Roosters won the 2013 NRL premiership while Green's NYC side made the preliminary finals in the Under 20s competition.

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 within a whisker of the top 4 finish in 2014.

They finished the season with 15 wins, in fifth place.

During the season Green made some decisions which analysts saw as defining the Cowboys' quality season, including shifting halfback Michael Morgan to the fullback position, switching captain Johnathan Thurston from five-eighth back to the halfback position and 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.

As a coach, Green guided the North Queensland club to their first premiership in 2015 and to another grand final two years later.

Born in Brisbane, Queensland, Green was a Wynnum Manly Seagulls junior.

During the build-up to NRL Grand Final week in 2015, then Brisbane Broncos coach Wayne Bennett explained that he had 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 of coach.

Ultimately it went to ex Penrith Panthers coach Anthony Griffin.