The 18-year-old debuted for the Cowboys in this year’s finals series and did enough to earn the kind of dollars reserved for the game’s best players.

Cowboys coach Paul Green confirmed the club had lost the fullback, however, North Queensland are yet to release him for 2017.

At this stage, he will join the Knights from 2018.

“Look, it’s early days, so there’s a cooling off period, but we expect Kalyn to go there (to the Knights),” Green said.

“So look we’re disappointed, but we’ve got the big picture in mind, we wanted to keep Kalyn obviously and he’s been in our system for a little while now, so disappointed to lose him but we’ll move on and it probably takes some of the pressure off trying to keep some of the other big name guys like Johnathan Thurston and Matt Scott and Jason Taumalolo.”

 “Kalyn’s contracted to us for next year, he’s part of our plans for next year and as such he’s expected to play for us.

“This is the competitive nature of the industry that we’re part of, so I’m going to pick the best team possible and if Kalyn’s part of that then he’ll be in the team, simple as that.

“Newcastle are paying what they felt they were able to pay.

“If it came down to money we were probably never going to be able to compete if that’s what was the most important thing, and I’m not saying it is, but clearly that’s made up part of his decision.”