Cowboys fullback Lachlan Coote, a part of last year’s epic grand final win over the Brisbane Broncos, says the fire burns as strongly as it did in 2015 at the Cowboys - even through his side’s current struggles to secure a top-four spot.

“It’s still the same,” the 26-year-old said of the attitude around the Cowboys’ camp when asked about how the 2016 atmosphere compared to last year’s whirlwind of excitement and emotion.

Without doubt the hardest task in modern rugby league is winning back to back premierships. No team has been able to achieve the feat since the Brisbane Broncos of 1992-93 when they toppled the St George Dragons in successive grand finals. This season has delivered nothing new to the Cowboys as far as next-season challenges go for rugby league premiers.

After a thumping 36-0 win over Canterbury in Round 20, the Cowboys have slumped to three consecutive losses: to the rampaging Storm at home and the eager Wests Tigers at Leichhardt, before last Sunday’s loss to the lowly Roosters in one of the upsets of the season.

“Everyone in the team is very competitive, all footballers are,” Coote told Inside Sport as part of our special “Chosen 1s” feature in our October edition, which focusses on the fullbacks most likely to shape the 2016 NRL finals series.

“You want to win every game and I guess probably sometimes this year we’ve sort’ve taken it for granted a little bit.

“We haven’t been lacking in effort in any game we’ve played this year. You still get excited about getting up and playing each week and wanting to win and obviously we don’t want to take our experiences for granted. The times we have, we’ve been very disappointed in ourselves.”

The Cowboys will finish off their 2016 campaign by hosting the Warriors this Saturday night, before playing the Bulldogs at Belmore and then the Titans in Townsville.

“We’re still keen to play finals football, but we’re just taking each week as it comes,” Coote said. “We have some big games coming up now; we want to finish in the top four. There’s nothing like playing finals football. I got to experience that last year for the second time in my career. It’s exciting football.”