National Rugby League side North Queensland Cowboys set its sights on a new multi-million dollar high performance center "in the heart" of Townsville following a fact-finding mission in the U.S., according to Travis Meyn of the Brisbane COURIER-MAIL. North Queensland "has a vision" for a club HQ to be located near the new A$250M ($192M) Townsville Stadium. The Cowboys are now "arguably Queensland’s premier NRL club" after winning the '15 premiership and "making a fairytale grand final appearance this year." The club is determined to secure a new training and administration facility in Townsville following the completion of the stadium in '19. The Gold Coast Titans and Brisbane Broncos "moved into world class new facilities in the past year and the Cowboys do not want to be left behind." Cowboys CEO Greg Tonner, GM Peter Parr and coach Paul Green toured the stadium and training setups of Atlanta, Ga.'s professional teams. Parr said, "We’ve got a really exciting future with the move to the new stadium but we also understand we’ll only get one opportunity to get it right. We have a longer-term plan to set up our own high-performance center. That is still in the very early stages but it’s hopefully something we can do" (COURIER-MAIL, 12/14).
