North Queensland have signed England international John Bateman on a two-year deal and they have got him at a good price.
Bateman was released by the Wests Tigers from the final two years of his contract on Wednesday and AAP understands they are chipping in half of his lucrative new deal.
It is a shrewd move by the Cowboys on a financial level and the 31-year-old Bateman has the experience the side needs after an exodus of four key veterans.
Cowboys general manager of football Micheal Luck told AAP that Bateman was a key acquisition for multiple reasons.
“We lost well over 1000 games of first game experience at the end of last season with guys like Val Holmes, Kyle Feldt, Chad Townsend and Jake Granville moving on," Luck said.
"There are only two guys over 30 in our squad - Jason Taumalolo and Jordan McLean - and we have some tremendous young forwards we wanted to add experience around.
"The other thing we like about John is that he can play in the middle and edge back-row and we feel we played our best footy in the last couple of years when we had Tom Gilbert who could start on an edge and move to the middle or vice-versa.
"John can add starch in that position and save you an interchange in the game."
Bateman has played 285 Super League and NRL games and more than 30 Tests for England and Great Britain.
He also brings the defensive resolve and competitive drive in any situation that the Cowboys are seeking to make them a premiership force.
"Our crowd likes players in a team who entertain, put it out there and are all about effort and John certainly is that," Luck said.
"There is no secret we need to improve our grit and resolve and particularly defensively. Our coaches are working hard on that in the pre-season but John is a bloke who brings that straight away, which we were really attracted to.
"We will be excited to get him here after Christmas."
In other Cowboys news exciting outside back Tom Chester is set to discover the extent of the knee injury he suffered at training.
The 23-year-old missed most of the 2023 season with a ruptured ACL. The early fear was that his most recent injury was a severe one
"He is going in for surgery on Thursday to explore the extent of the injury. It's a case of fingers crossed," Luck said.
