Cowboys remain defiant after South Sydney poaches feeder club

Long-simmering tensions between the Cowboys and Blackhawks exploded this week when Townsville severed a nine-year relationship with North Queensland to join South Sydney.

The Cowboys insist they won’t lose Queensland’s best rising talents to the Rabbitohs after South Sydney poached Townsville’s premier second-tier club.

A week after snaring Gold Coast nursery Keebra Park High School from the Titans, the Rabbitohs on Tuesday announced a two-year affiliation agreement with North Queensland’s feeder club the Townsville Blackhawks.

The Redfern raid on Cowboys heartland will provide aspiring north Queensland talent with another pathway to the NRL, albeit with a Sydney club 2000km away following a relationship breakdown between the Cowboys and Blackhawks.

Long-simmering tensions between the Cowboys and Blackhawks exploded this week when Townsville severed a nine-year relationship with North Queensland to join Souths.

The situation is not dissimilar to the Gold Coast Titans losing the Burleigh Bears to the Brisbane Broncos after outlining plans to field their own reserve grade team in the Hostplus Cup.

The Cowboys essentially used the Blackhawks as their dedicated reserve grade team this year, which backfired and led to the breakdown of relations between the clubs who have conflicting views on a number of issues.

The Rabbitiohs have landed a big blow on the Cowboys. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

The Titans and Cowboys have plans to field their own reserve grade teams and QRL chief Ben Ikin is still lobbying the NRL for funding with the hope of a two-year trial from 2025.

But for now, the Cowboys will revert to sending fringe players to the Mackay Cutters and Northern Pride and CEO Jeff Reibel said it was business as usual in Townsville despite the Blackhawks’ defection.

“Nothing changes from a Cowboys perspective,” he said.

“We pride ourselves on being a development club, whether that be through our academies or our development systems.

“We partner with seven schools throughout North Queensland, we have the Northern Pride and the Mackay Cutters as part of that and we have a successful system. We will continue with that as we go into 2024.

“With regards to the Blackhawks, we partnered with them in 2014 when they first came into the Queensland Cup, so it’s been nine years and we have supported them financially and through football, whether it be coach or player development.

The Cowboys and Blackhawks fell out last season. Picture: Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images

“We put forward a proposal to the Blackhawks to continue our relationship and that proposal clearly didn’t go any further.

“We would need to talk to them on what the crux of their issue is. I would hope the door is always open (to reunite) given our geographic footprint.

“We will need to work together still with under-age groups. But we have a philosophy to develop male and female talent in North Queensland and that won’t change.”

The Rabbitohs will provide coach and player development opportunities and give promising talent a chance to train and trial with the famous NRL club.

However they will not provide fringe players for the Blackhawks’ Hostplus Cup team on a weekly basis due to their commitment to the NSW Cup premiership winning Rabbitohs team.

“We understand that for many young players coming out of Townsville and the surrounding districts that the Cowboys may be the club with which they choose to pursue their career and we fully respect that,” Souths COO Brock Schaefer said.

“However we will be working with the Blackhawks to encourage players that wish to broaden their horizon and look elsewhere to make the Rabbitohs their choice of NRL club,”

Reibel said the Cowboys were confident of not losing the region’s top talent to the Rabbitohs given most of the Blackhawks’ elite players were contracted to North Queensland.

“I will back our guys on the ground through the development network that we have, the academy network we have and our junior contracted players,” he said.

“The Blackhawks Colts team won the last Hastings Deering competition. Of the 17 players that took the field, 13 are contracted to the Cowboys.

“The fact there is another NRL club that is going to be part of our area means we just have to strengthen the pathways we have in place.

“That comes down to our people, our networks and who we are as a club and I will back us to keep delivering in that area.”

Originally published as Cowboys remain defiant after South Sydney poaches feeder club