Todd Payten will consider swinging the axe on his North Queensland side after their hefty 42-6 loss to Cronulla, which the coach felt exposed a gap between the Cowboys and the NRL's best teams.

North Queensland won four of their first five games this season but have now dropped two in a row and were thoroughly outplayed at Shark Park on Sunday.

Cronulla's discipline with the ball gave them ample opportunity to attack at close range and the Cowboys repeatedly buckled defending their line.

North Queensland's attack had been their calling card to start the year but they were muscled out of the territory battle and were sloppy with the ball when they did get chances.

A frustrated Payten said unlike the NRL's best sides the Cowboys did not have a defensive mindset, and that he may be forced into changes for next week's clash with reigning premiers Penrith.

"I'll be looking at it, absolutely," he said after Sunday's loss.

"We've got to shift our attitude towards tackling and defending. If we've got 100 per cent of energy, we're putting 65 to 70 per cent of it into our attack, rather than at least 50/50.

"The good teams, they'll go 60/40 towards defence, knowing they'll get that energy back at some stage, whether it's two, three sets later, or the back-end of each half.

"Until we shift that mentality, we'll still be here having this conversation."

Payten was quick to admit poor defence had become a trend for the Cowboys, who are leaking more than 27 points a game on average this season.

Penrith, by comparison, are conceding just more than 15 a game in 2024.

"We've spoken about it," Payten said.

"We've beaten some teams in the first month of the competition (without defending well) and you can't do that against the top four, six, or eight teams.

"That's not going to win you enough matches, or win you any matches against the big teams."

Cowboys co-captain Tom Dearden was resigned that changes could be made to the Cowboys' 17 for round eight.

"That's up to Toddy," he said.

"Toddy will make every decision based on what he thinks is best for ... our performances.

"It's up to us players to really pull our fingers out. It wasn't good enough tonight."