The North Queensland Cowboys have made a key addition to their outside back stocks for the 2025 NRL season, signing versatile speedster Jaxson Paulo on a two-year deal.
Paulo, 25, was granted a release by the Manly Sea Eagles to link up with the Cowboys. The former Rooster and Rabbitoh has notched an impressive 63 tries in 63 NRL appearances to date.
The acquisition of Paulo takes the Cowboys’ top 30 roster to 28 players for 2025, with the club still having flexibility to make further moves in the player market.
McLean set to go around again
Veteran prop Jordan McLean is one of the 28 currently contracted for next season. The 33-year-old, who won a premiership with the Storm in 2017, is not listed on the official NRL registry as yet but is certain to be there come round one.
Robson contract a priority
The Cowboys are also confident of re-signing NSW Origin hooker Reece Robson beyond 2025. Discussions around an extension are expected to ramp up once Robson returns from his post-season break.
Robson, 26, is seen as a crucial retention for North Queensland given his standing as one of the NRL’s elite dummy halves.
Paulo to support young outside backs
Paulo’s arrival offsets the departures of Valentine Holmes to the Dragons and 2015 grand final hero Kyle Feldt to St Helens. He will provide quality support to the club’s rising outside back talents.
We are really lucky that we think we have a couple of great young players in the outside backs in Zac Laybutt and Rob Derby, but we needed to put some support around them with good NRL players.
Jaxson came across our radar and Manly were willing to release him, so we jumped in pretty quick and signed him.
– Cowboys football GM Micheal Luck
According to Luck, Paulo will bring a “point of difference” to complement the youthful Laybutt and Derby.
Rob is a big winger and Zac is tall and rangy for a centre, so Jaxson is a point of difference there. He is a super-skilful player and very quick and we are looking forward to seeing how he develops further in our system.
– Micheal Luck
PNG flyer gets Cowboys chance
North Queensland have also handed an opportunity to Papua New Guinea fullback Morea Morea this pre-season.
Morea impressed in the recent Pacific Championships and has been awarded a train and trial contract, where he will be paid $1200 per week.
The Raggianas star will provide further depth and competition in the outside backs as he pushes for a full-time NRL deal.
Lessons learned for roster management
The Cowboys are content to still have two vacancies to fill for 2025, with the club taking a measured approach to recruitment after some missteps in previous years.
We learned some lessons several years ago when we went in with a settled list thinking we had all the ingredients, so we have taken a different tack the last couple of years and kept a few roster spots open to see how the pre-season and early season unfolded.
– Micheal Luck
This strategy proved effective in 2024 as North Queensland were able to bolster their squad with astute mid-season pick-ups after identifying areas that needed strengthening.
We made signings this year with Harrison Edwards and Braidon Burns to bolster positions that we needed depth in. That worked really well for us, so we are going to take the same attitude and strategy into next year.
– Micheal Luck
The Cowboys will be hoping the additions of Paulo and potentially Morea, along with the retention of key personnel like Robson, can lift them back into premiership contention after a disappointing 2024 campaign.
