{"id":960421,"date":"2026-11-11T09:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T09:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/960421\/"},"modified":"2026-11-11T09:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T09:34:16","slug":"cowboys-announce-2027-dev-list-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/960421\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys announce 2027 Dev List players"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four graduates of the North Queensland Toyota Cowboys Young Guns program join two new recruits to make up the club\u2019s Development List for the 2027 NRL season.<\/p>\n

Existing Development List players Xavier Kerrisk<\/a>, Matt Watts<\/a> and Archie Mesritz<\/a> remain from 2026 and will be joined by powerhouse prop Fanafou Seve<\/a>, who moves into the NRL squad from the Young Guns program.<\/p>\n

Former Roosters utility Jake Elliott and Dragons prop Leeroy Weatherall have inked contracts to move to North Queensland.<\/p>\n

Kerrisk broke through for his NRL debut in 2026 in what was his second season with the Cowboys\u2019 top squad.<\/p>\n

The Mackay product was a staple at hooker for the Cutters in the Queensland Cup as they broke a 13-year finals drought.<\/p>\n

Kerrisk appeared in 18 games for the Cutters, scoring six tries and assisting two, while averaging 22 tackles per game at 92 per cent efficiency.<\/p>\n


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A fellow Mackay product, Watts was compiling a solid season for the Cutters before a shoulder injury ended his campaign midway through the year.<\/p>\n

Watts appeared in six games for the Cutters in the Queensland Cup, averaging 60 running metres and 13 tackles per game.<\/p>\n


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Mesritz moved into the NRL squad midway through the 2026 season in what was his first full-time year of rugby league.<\/p>\n

The St Joseph\u2019s College Nudgee graduate was instrumental at fullback in grand final victories for both the Townsville Blackhawks in the Mal Meninga Cup and the Cowboys in the NRLQ.<\/p>\n


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Fellow NRLQ premiership winner Seve previously spent time in the Bulldogs and Roosters systems before moving to North Queensland prior to the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

A hulking front-rower of Tongan heritage, Seve made his Queensland Cup debut in 2026, appearing in 10 games for the Northern Pride.<\/p>\n


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Elliott arrives in North Queensland after playing 50 NSW Cup games across three seasons with the Roosters.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old split his 16 appearances in 2026 between five-eighth and hooker.<\/p>\n


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A standout front-rower who excelled at every level through the Dragons pathways system, Weatherall was promoted to the Dragons’ Top 30 squad in June.<\/p>\n

The 20-year-old will look to make his senior debut in 2027.<\/p>\n


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Taj Lateo, Tyson Walker and Taylan To\u2019a will also spend the 2027 season training alongside the NRL squad on Train and Replacement contracts.<\/p>\n

Alekisio Siale, Maddox Goodwin, Braith Dowson and Reweti Ngarimu will all spend parts of the pre-season with the NRL squad before returning to the Young Guns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four graduates of the North Queensland Toyota Cowboys Young Guns program join two new recruits to make up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":960422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-960421","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\/960421","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=960421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/960421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/960422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=960421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=960421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=960421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}