Paul Green says the Cowboys will lose Kalyn Ponga to Newcastle but not until 2018

NORTH Queensland coach Paul Green is resigned to losing Kalyn Ponga to Newcastle but the budding star will not leave the Cowboys until the end of 2017.

Kalyn Ponga is about to make a lot of money.

COWBOYS coach Paul Green has indicated Kalyn Ponga will see out the final year of his contract with the club, but is resigned to losing the 18-year-old to Newcastle in the future.

It was revealed on Thursday that the young gun had been offered the richest contract for a teenager in rugby league history, after the Knights tabled a $3.6 million deal for Ponga.

However, while the five-year offer was due to start as soon as next season, Green has this morning insisted that the talented rookie will stay with the Cowboys for 2017.

Green said he was disappointed to lose Ponga but expected him to remain in Townsville for one more year.

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“We expect Kalyn to go there,” Green said of Newcastle.

“We’re disappointed ... we wanted to keep Kalyn. He’s a good young talent obviously and has been in our system for a little while now.

“We’re disappointed to lose him but we’ll move on.

“Kalyn is contracted to us for next year and is part of our plans for next year and as such, he’s expected to play for us.”

Green said Ponga will not be automatically relegated to under-20s or Intrust Super Cup during the upcoming season just because he is leaving the club in the future.

Ponga played two NRL games for the Cowboys last year and Green said if he was still good enough to make the top 17, he would be selected.

Ponga has dominated the Under 20s for the past two seasons.

Green also claimed he was not sure whether or not Ponga had yet tried to ask for a release but said he knew the Cowboys could not match what the Knights were offering him.

“There were obviously things that were important to Kalyn in weighing up his decision,” he said.

“They were things we couldn’t match. I’ll probably have to talk to Kalyn about why he got to that decision.”

Despite the expected loss of the highly sought-after youngster, Green remained optimistic this morning as the Cowboys returned for their first session of pre-season training.

He said that Ponga’s decision means they can now focus on retaining other big name stars, including the likes of Jason Taumalolo and Matt Scott.

“We’ve certainly got other guys we need to retain also,” he said.

“It probably takes a little bit of pressure off trying to keep some of the other big name guys.”

Originally published as Paul Green says the Cowboys will lose Kalyn Ponga to Newcastle but not until 2018