Nine NYC Cowboys will play their first pre-season game for North Queensland in the trial match against reigning Townsville District Rugby League premiers Herbert River in Ingham on Saturday night.
Coach Todd Wilson has turned to many of his first-year players for the third pre-season match of the campaign with Sam Smith, Cooper Bambling, Tyrone Pritchard, Coen Hess, Ty Carucci, Nick Brown and Jesse Pomare-Anderson all joining the Cowboys for the first time for this pre-season.
They will be joined by two Cowboys making their return from off-season surgery – winger Conor Carey, who made his NYC debut last year, and hooker Josh Chudleigh, who has joined North Queensland this season after playing A-grade football in the Canberra competition.
Fijian Viliame Kikau has been promoted to the starting pack after coming off the bench against the Northern Pride and Mackay Cutters.
The match against the Crushers will kick off at 6pm at the Ingham Showgrounds.
COWBOYS NYC SQUAD: 1 Sam Pau, 2 Sam Smith, 3 Conor Carey, 4 Temone Power, 5 Kurt Perry, 6 Aaron Solari, 7 Cooper Bambling, 8 Halvor Harris, 9 Josh Chudleigh, 10 Tyrone Pritchard, 11 Coen Hess, 12 Viliame Kikau, 13 Bill Cullen. Interchange: 14 Chris Law, 15 Nick Brown, 16 Ty Carucci, 17 Jesse Pomare-Anderson, 18 Michael Barclay, 19 Jonico Hardwick.
