Cowboys want Leilua early: North Queensland angling for star’s early Tigers release

The Cowboys want to add Luciano Leilua to their forward stock as soon as next year, and are set to formally request the Wests Tigers release their departing second-rower a year early so he can start his three-year North Queensland contract from the NRL’s 2022 season.

Leilua has already agreed to join the Cowboys in a rich — very rich, we might add: $2.1 million over three years — from 2023, but North Queensland’s powerbrokers have found some extra cash in their kitty for next year.

The Sporting Base has heard the Tigers have already knocked back the offer.

The Cowboys aren’t expected to give up that easily, however, and when that ambition is paired with Leilua’s preference to get his boots on the ground in Townsville as quickly as possible, Wests may face a difficult situation. The 25-year-old is also relatively happy to stay at Concord for another year though, sources close to the star have told media.

Wests originally came to the table fairly interested in the early move, but only if they could scoop up two paperweights headed in the other direction; promising back-rowers Jeremiah Nanai and Heilum Luki would have been enough to convince the Tigers to sign on the dotted line.

Nanai especially is a highly sort-after prize in the NRL junior development programs.

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The Cowboys dismissed those suggestions though. They have already been hard at work trying to lock down two of their best and brightest young stars, and don’t want to risk losing either one of them to a Sydney rival just to get their hands on Leilua twelve months earlier than he’d already be arriving at the club.

Instead, North Queensland is trying to sell the Tigers the idea they would have between $600,000 and $650,000 — Leilua’s pay packet in the final year of his Wests deal — free to pick up another player for their own 2022 campaign.

The idea isn’t unappealing to the orange-and-black cohort, who have been quietly eyeing up Bulldogs odd-man-out Nick Cotric. The winger is expected to be the star shelved by Gus Gould at Canterbury to balance out their teetering salary cap issues, and could be a major key in the three-club player shuffle that may happen before March next year.

For now, Leilua is expected to stay at the Tigers for one more season. He will then head to Townsville to take up his $700k-a-year deal, and be replaced by incoming Eels forward Isiah Papali’i.

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