North Queensland Toyota Cowboys v Manly Sea Eagles NYC
5.15pm, Saturday 30 May, 1300SMILES Stadium
Referee: Liam Kennedy
Touch judges: Wyatt Raymond, Chris Nitso
Updates: twitter.com/nthqldcowboys
NRL: Cowboys v Sea Eagles 7.30pm
TEAMS
Cowboys: 1 Yamba Bowie 2 Gideon Mosby 3 Akerpia Tia Kilifi 4 Conor Carey 5 Scott Schulte 6 Ty Carucci 7 Cooper Bambling 8 Viliame Kikau 9 Andrew Niemoeller 10 Ross Bella 11 Bill Cullen 12 Temone Power 13 Kieran Quabba (c). Interchange: 14 Kyle Laybutt 15 Jordan Kenworthy 16 David Munro 17 Braden Uele.
Sea Eagles: 1 Tom Trbojevic 2 Harlan Collins 3 Jesse Ramien 4 Matt Douglas 5 Jesse Bogle 6 Will Pearsall (c) 7 Riley Travers 8 Liam Knight 9 Hugh Pratt 10 Addison Demetriou 11 Rhys Armstrong 12 Moses McGreal 13 Darcy Cox 14 Nicholas Hynes 15 Jordan Sims 16 Billy Bainbridge 17 Jesse Maxwell 18 Dallas Koens.
KEY FACTS
The young Cowboys returned from Campbelltown Stadium with a hard-fought 24-14 win over Wests Tigers in round 12 to cement themselves in the National Youth Competition top three, with a seven-win, one-draw, three-loss record.
Bowen product and Burdekin resident Temone Power will line up in the back row for his third NYC game after impressing against the Tigers.
Power played the full 80 minutes and coaching staff were pleased with his transition from Townsville and Districts Rugby League to NYC.
Bill Cullen, a second-year NYC player, will be tasked with providing a strong presence in the forwards.
The young Sea Eagles (13 points) are coming off the bye and will look to improve their ladder position, which is currently sixth (5-1-4).
Runaway competition leaders over the opening rounds, Manly have come back to the pack in recent rounds, and the Cowboys will be wary of fullback Tom Trbojevic, who has already tasted game time in the NRL.
COWBOYS COACH TODD PAYTEN: “I was really pleased with our defence last week. We scrambled well. So I’ll be looking for more of the same against the Sea Eagles, as well as fluency in attack.”
