How the Cowboys lost the Blackhawks to South Sydney
Rugby league is about to discover whether Townsville really is big enough for two NRL heavyweights.
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The ugly divorce between the North Queensland Cowboys and the Townsville Blackhawks will be finalised by the end of the month but the Hostplus Cup outfit will not be lonely for long.
South Sydney, led by North Queensland-born chief operating officer Brock Schaefer, will step in as the new flame in the Hostplus Cup club’s life from November 1.
For the next two years the Rabbitohs will make Townsville their northern seat of power, offering player and coaching development opportunities in a bold raid under the noses of the Cowboys.
Blackhawks football operations manager Adrian Thompson declared the partnership marked the beginning of a new era for rugby league in North Queensland, as the club enters its ninth season of operation and its first without a formal player-allocation agreement with the Cowboys.
One thing is for certain as the two powerhouse clubs operate within 20km of each other.
Rugby league is about to discover whether this town really is big enough for both of them.
HANGING UP THE BOOTS
Internal frustrations at the Blackhawks over the club’s player allocation arrangement with the Cowboys boiled over into public in 2023 as Townsville limped to its worst ever Queensland Cup finish.
In a bid to unlock greater cohesion among its NRL fringe players, North Queensland had stacked the Blackhawks with Cowboys players from outside the matchday 17 in 2023.
Initial hopes that the influx of NRL talent would trigger a breakthrough premiership season for Townsville soon faded.
With no guarantee of regular playing time the Blackhawks regular starters walked away from the club, leaving the club vulnerable to a sudden reduction in Cowboy availability.
The Cowboys’ early season injury crisis proved a perfect storm, forcing the Blackhawks to scramble for local A Grade and junior talent to fill the ranks of an outfit promised to be manned by hardened professionals.
Coach Aaron Payne was left in the dark, often until the captain’s run the night before a game, about which Cowboys would be available for selection.
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The disruption proved terminal for the Blackhawks season and Payne was sacked in controversial circumstances.
A Blackhawks media release blamed the loss of control over the team as a factor behind Payne’s departure.
The Blackhawks later retracted the statement, apologising to the Cowboys, but the affair left the clubs at loggerheads internally.
Uncertainty around the Cowboys future plans for their own feeder team, under their total control threatened to leave the Blackhawks without a dance partner when the music stopped.
Townsville’s search for stability ended nearly a month ago with a phone call from one of rugby league’s most powerful figures: Schaefer, the former Northern Pride chief turned South Sydney powerbroker.
A JEWEL FOR THE CROWN
Schaefer was no stranger to the talent production line in Queensland.
He was born and raised in Townsville until the age of 10 and, prior to joining the Rabbitohs, was a senior executive at the Northern Pride in Cairns.
With work already underway to snatch one jewel from Queensland’s development crown in Gold Coast footy nursery Keebra Park, Schaefer turned his attention to adding another in a region whose rich talent stocks he was already well aware.
A New South Wales scramble to align with Queensland clubs had already begun a year earlier.
Both the Bulldogs and Roosters partnered with QRL sides Western Clydesdales and Ipswich Jets in 2022, and the noise around the Blackhawks dissatisfaction with the Cowboys was growing louder.
“Brock made it clear from the start that he wanted us to come into some sort of agreement,” Blackhawks football operations manager Adrian Thompson said.
“He understood we were still under agreement with the Cowboys. He said if that didn’t materialise or we weren’t happy or whatever, Souths want to be the first option.
“Our connection with the Cowboys over nine years was natural. This is unnatural, partnering with a Sydney club, but it’s great that a club like the Rabbitohs approached us and wanted to be connected to our club.”
Schaefer said the rare chance to partner with two of Queensland’s top football nurseries was too good to pass up.
“It doesn’t come up very often and that’s why it was so important for us to work in close partnership with the Blackhawks,” he said.
“We are great admirers of this club as we are great admirers of rugby league in this district. We’ve got a great track record of providing coaching expertise and really holistic development for young players in our district and we see some great synergies with what the Blackhawks have established over our history.”
HOW IT WILL WORK
South Sydney’s Top 30 and NRL fringe will not journey north to Townsville and nor will elite Blackhawks juniors be shipped out to Sydney for New South Wales’ Harold Matthews (U16) and S.G. Ball (U19) competitions.
“It’s certainly not our plan to send Top 30 players back here every week,” Schaefer said.
“We’ll only work to assist the Blackhawks in fielding the best possible squad for their competition.”
A newly-formed committee will work to assist the Blackhawks’ recruitment efforts for the Hostplus Cup season, with an important NRL carrot set to trigger renewed interest for free agents.
For the next two years at least four Blackhawks players will be awarded 16-week train-and-trial contracts with South Sydney valued at $19.2k per player - a lucrative incentive to dangle in front of players considering a move north.
Most critical to the Blackhawks is taking back control of the club.
“That is important, no doubt,” Thompson said.
“We’ve got a new coach (Raiders legend Terry Campese) and he has full say.
“The thing we’ve impressed on the guys we are recruiting is it’s going to be different to the past. They will be competing within the squad because there won’t be others coming in from outside the squad.
“The top squad is the squad Terry and his assistants select every week.”
Townsville will be left to run its own race in the Queensland Cup, in total control of the club’s own recruitment, retention and selection in 2024.
“It’s exciting to keep the same squad each week,” Campese said.
“We’ve got some train-and-trials who will go down and be in a full-time NRL system and they’ll bring that experience back to the rest of the squad.”
Schaefer said the Rabbitohs would not pluck Townsville’s most promising juniors out of Queensland’s statewide competitions to bolster South Sydney’s teams in NSW.
“We won’t be taking kids from Townsville to play in our under-age competitions,” he said.
“We’re not a club that’s interested in flying 15-year-olds halfway across the country. We don’t think that works for them. They’ll develop best wearing the Blackhawks colours in the great program that already exists here, just with a bit of extra South Sydney support thrown in.”
That support is set to be significant.
Blackhawks and South Sydney officials are already in discussions about providing extra equipment.
South Sydney development coaches will fly north “at least eight times per year” to run camps that will double as opportunities to scope out elite unsigned talent up close.
Thompson said Blackhawks players already under contract with rival clubs would not be pushed towards South Sydney.
“Souths have made it very clear to us that they are not interested in Cowboys contracted players,” Thompson said.
“We probably weren’t going to get any Cowboys as it was (for the 2024 Hostplus Cup) and we’re not getting any South Sydney Rabbitohs.
“In the under-19s, we’ve not closed that pathway. Over a number of years we’ve had players in our lower grades that were contracted to other clubs like the Broncos and Roosters. That pathway is not closed, it is still there for the Cowboys to send their players to us.
“I want to commend our board, our CEO and our chairman for making a brave decision that is in the best interests of our club. I think it aids players and staff in the region to give them another pathway.
“The Cowboys can only contract as many as they can contract, we will still offer another direct pathway.”
NORTHERN CEASEFIRE
With partnership agreements with Keebra Park and the Townsville Blackhawks in place for 2024, Schaefer said the Rabbitohs would not be targeting other Queensland clubs or schools for agreements.
“I think we’ve partnered with two of the premier pathway systems in the state, in Keebra Park in southeast Queensland and now with the Blackhawks,” Schaefer said.
“We certainly don’t have any plans to work with anybody else and, critically, the Blackhawks will be our main partner in Queensland Rugby League competitions.”
Schaefer said his club’s move into North Queensland would not be a Cowboys vs. Rabbitohs situation.
“They’re a great club and we have a lot of respect for the Cowboys,” he said.
“This is about Souths working closely with a really strong Queensland Cup club. We’re confident that the expertise we have in elite player development will be of great assistance to young players here.”
Originally published as How the Cowboys lost the Blackhawks to South Sydney
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