{"id":252778,"date":"2025-10-31T08:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252778\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T08:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:16:10","slug":"premiership-contender-enters-market-for-cowboys-utility-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252778\/","title":{"rendered":"Premiership contender enters market for Cowboys utility – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The North Queensland Cowboys<\/a> will face a significant fight to retain the services of utility Jaxon Purdue<\/a> beyond the end of 2026.<\/p>\n

The utility is off-contract at the end of 2026 and likely to become a heavily chased prospect on the open market from November 1.<\/p>\n

Able to play at fullback, centre or five-eighth, Purdue has impressed across all three roles for Todd Payten’s side, becoming one of the club’s shining lights in an otherwise disappointing 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old, who was born in Mackay, has not yet accepted a new deal with the Cowboys, and it’s unclear what point of negotiations may be up to.<\/p>\n

There is little doubt he is a long-term priority for the Townsville-based outfit, but, per a News Corp report, the cashed-up Melbourne Storm<\/a> have identified him as a target.<\/p>\n

The Storm are currently looking at a wide open squad for 2027, aided by recent departures of Jonah Pezet<\/a>, Nelson Asofa-Solomona<\/a> and now Ryan Papenhuyzen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Melbourne also has no guarantee of retaining Tyran Wishart<\/a> for 2027, who currently serves as the club’s utility but would view himself as a starting level five-eighth – something he isn’t going to do with Cameron Munster<\/a> ahead of him.<\/p>\n

The Storm would face the same battle with Purdue, although it could potentially offer him a spot in the centres if they are unable to retain one of Nick Meaney<\/a> or Will Warbrick<\/a>, who are both off-contract at the end of 2026.<\/p>\n

The Storm are unlikely to be the only club in the mix for Purdue.<\/p>\n

The Perth Bears<\/a>, with a full squad to fill and a salary cap to use, are almost certain to open talks, while several other clubs around the competition could also view him as a target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The North Queensland Cowboys will face a significant fight to retain the services of utility Jaxon Purdue beyond…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252779,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-252778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}