Cowboys return serve to Broncos in NRLW recruitment battle with Emma Manzelmann signing
North Queensland has struck back in its NRLW recruitment war with Brisbane, locking down a premiership-winning hooker as the club’s foundation signing.
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North Queensland has struck back in its NRLW recruitment war with Brisbane, locking down premiership-winning hooker Emma Manzelmann as the club’s foundation signing.
The Cowboys were beaten by the Broncos for the signatures of BMD premiership-winning Gold Stars Romy Teitzel and Destiny Brill over the weekend but returned serve by securing a generational talent to spearhead the club’s spine.
The 21-year-old Mackay product was North Queensland’s back-to-back player of the year in the feeder competition and helped lead the Knights to the 2022 NRLW title.
Manzelmann declared her ambition was to win the trophy again with North Queensland.
“100 per cent,” she said.
“To have some of the Gold Stars girls that I played with the past two seasons coming to join us is pretty exciting.
“We already have that connection so to bring that and then to build with the other girls coming along, I’m pretty keen (to win at the next level together).”
At 5’5 and 55kg, the niece of champion country trainer John Manzelmann could have been a jockey in his Mackay stable if not for the guiding hand of her father away from the saddle and towards the Steeden.
“There was lots of talk about it when we were growing up but it was a bit dangerous so dad lent us towards not doing that,” Manzelmann said.
Rugby league has received her family’s full support.
A childhood in the Manzelmann stables shovelling feed and manure was the foundation stone for a work ethic that has taken the tough-as-nails hooker all the way to the Cowboys.
A childhood “shovelling shit†in the stables of champion Mackay trainer John Manzelmann was the foundation of a work ethic that has taken niece Emma to the NRLW.
— Nic Darveniza (@NicDarveniza) April 4, 2023
🎥: Manzelmann Family pic.twitter.com/6nITvFlFso
It’s a future Manzelmann could never have imagined for herself as a youngster running around for the Walkerston Wanderers.
“Growing up there was not much women’s footy … and then when the Cowboys said they were putting in a team it was sort of a dream. Now that dream is becoming true,” she said.
Cowboys chief executive Jeff Reibel said Manzelmann’s signing was a vindication of the tough decision at the dawn of the NRW to delay North Queensland’s entry, with a vision to one day run out a team truly representative of the region.
“For Emma to now be able to compete on the national stage from her home region is special, and why our forefathers put this club in place,” Reibel said.
“We’ve got a good portion of our squad that have contracts in front of them at the moment and we’re really comfortable with where we’re at.”
Fending off rival teams from poaching North Queensland talent remains a key priority.
Manzelmann rejected an offer to return to the Knights while North Queensland could not close out a deal with Teitzel, the Gold Stars captain widely expected to lead the Cowboys’ outfit in 2023.
NRLW coach Ben Jeffries said the competition for North Queensland talent was a testament to the development pathways the Cowboys had installed in the region.
“It is a compliment,” Jeffries said.
“These last two to three years our players have gone out and experienced the NRLW and we wanted them to come back and produce it here at our club, which Emma is going to do, and there will be others who’ve experienced that who will be here.
“Players have gone elsewhere to ply their trade and live their dream and now they can live that dream inside North Queensland.”
The Cowboys have filled the bulk of its Top 24 squad while another four players will join the group as development players.
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Originally published as Cowboys return serve to Broncos in NRLW recruitment battle with Emma Manzelmann signing
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