Cameron King will debut for the North Queensland Toyota Cowboys in one of the NRL season’s biggest matches – the Queensland derby against Brisbane at 1300SMILES Stadium on Friday night.
Sidelined by a knee injury for most of the season, the hooker has had three matches back with the Northern Pride in the Intrust Super Cup to regain his match fitness.
The 22-year-old replaces Anthony Mitchell on the interchange bench, while in the only change to the Cowboys’ starting 13 that downed Parramatta in their last start, Gavin Cooper returns from a knee injury in the back-row with Joel Riethmuller to drop back to the Pride.
A former Junior Kangaroo, King came to the Cowboys at the end of the 2013 season after playing 11 NRL matches with St George Illawarra.
He debuted for the Dragons in 2010 and was a teammate of current Cowboys Tariq Sims and Matthew Wright in the Junior Kangaroos squad in 2010.
The 12th-placed Cowboys will come up against a Broncos squad still sitting in the top eight despite losing three of their last four matches, including an agonising two-point defeat against South Sydney in their last start.
Tariq Sims has been named in the NQ starting pack after scans today revealed that he had only sustained a partial ligament tear in his ankle playing for Country Origin against City Origin in Dubbo on Sunday.
North Queensland Toyota Cowboys v Brisbane Broncos
Round 9, 2014 Telstra Premiership
7.40pm, Friday 9 May, 1300SMILES Stadium
1 Michael Morgan
2 Matthew Wright
3 Brent Tate
4 Kane Linnett
5 Curtis Rona
6 Johnathan Thurston (c)
7 Ray Thompson
8 Matt Scott (c)
9 Rory Kostjasyn
10 James Tamou
11 Gavin Cooper
12 Jason Taumalolo
13 Tariq Sims
Interchange:
14 Cameron King
15 Glenn Hall
16 Ashton Sims
17 Scott Bolton
Coach: Paul Green
