{"id":282640,"date":"2025-11-13T22:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T22:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/282640\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T22:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T22:14:09","slug":"nrl-pre-season-rising-cowboys-star-breaks-club-record-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/282640\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL pre-season: Rising Cowboys star breaks club record &#8211; NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/north-queensland-cowboys\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">North Queensland Cowboys<\/a> centre and fullback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/tom-chester\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tom Chester<\/a> has broken the club&#8217;s pre-season 1.2-kilometre shuttle run record by two seconds.<\/p>\n<p>In the first shot fired out of the pre-season in Townsville, Chester appeared to run a time of 4 minutes and 22 seconds for his 1.2-kilometre effort while most of his teammates were still running in the other direction.<\/p>\n<p>The outside back needs a big pre-season as he looks to win a spot back in under-pressure head coach Todd Payten&#8217;s side after rupturing his ACL during the 2025 pre-season.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Chester smashes the club 1.2km shuttle record by 2 seconds \ud83d\udca5 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IVNNrtSv7h\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/IVNNrtSv7h<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NQ Cowboys (@nthqldcowboys) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nthqldcowboys\/status\/1988517125879984440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">November 12, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The December injury means Chester is now 11 months into his recovery, and, if the season were currently ongoing, could be expected back on the field at any time.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he has a full pre-season to work his way back to full fitness and recapture the trajectory he had been on before the injury.<\/p>\n<p>Chester had been expected to follow his 2024 form into 2025 and win a spot in the centres, having originally taken over from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/zac-laybutt\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zac Laybutt<\/a>, who suffered a knee injury in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>A fullback by trade, Chester was credited for his work ethic in the centres by coach Payten, and could well find himself fighting for a spot there long-term in Townsville with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/players\/scott-drinkwater\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scott Drinkwater<\/a> having an iron grip on the number one jumper.<\/p>\n<p>Chester is also off-contract at the end of 2026, and is now allowed to negotiate with other sides, including the cashed-up <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerotackle.com\/nrl\/teams\/perth-bears\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Perth Bears,<\/a> who need to sign 30 players over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>        <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North Queensland Cowboys centre and fullback Tom Chester has broken the club&#8217;s pre-season 1.2-kilometre shuttle run record by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-282640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282640","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=282640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}