Coen Hess

Despite having played nine NRL games in 2015-16, back-rower Coen Hess officially moved into the NRL squad in 2017 from the club’s National Youth Competition set-up.

In his eight NRL games for the Cowboys in 2016, he scored four tries and terrorised edge defenders with his mobility, speed, size and strength.

If those two seasons provided coaching staff and fans with a glimpse of Hess’s potential, 2017 saw the young behemoth arrive as a bona fide NRL talent.

A staple of head coach Paul Green’s forwards rotation, Hess ripped in from the get-go, using his rare combination of speed, size and strength to steamroll opposition defences.

Virtually unstoppable in the first half of the season, Hess scored 10 tries from his first 13 games of the season and was topping the Cowboys’ try-scoring list for the bulk of the year before being reined in late by winger Kyle Feldt.

The real watershed moment for Hess came in the representative arena when he was selected for Queensland in Games II and III of the 2017 State of Origin series as the Maroons captured a third straight victory over the NSW Blues.

After spending the majority of the first three seasons of his career beginning games from the bench, Coen Hess finally nailed down a spot in the North Queensland Toyota Cowboys starting side in 2018.

He played all three games of the Origin series for Queensland and was one of their best in the Game Three victory over NSW at Suncorp Stadium.

After a tough start to his 2021 campaign, Hess moved from second row to the middle and immediately provided a jolt of energy to the Cowboys pack. His season culminated in being named the 2021 Paul Bowman Medalist for Cowboys Player of the Year.

Hess is contracted until the end of 2024.