We were sitting on a pool bench at the National Training Centre in Chermont, Florida. The manicured hedges, wide-open spaces, field with rugby posts and single-storey gym were reminiscent of 1300SMILES Stadium, where Bowen was at this time every year of his adult life. But it was not Townsville. Bowen, maybe the most popular player in the history of the Cowboys, travelled to the other side of the world to get his Wigan house keys, then to Florida for this training camp. He will have two preseason games in Britain, then one in New Zealand and the WCC against the Sydney Roosters on February 22. He ignored prompts to go into great detail about who told him his tenure at the club was over and what their exact words were. But he did not disguise his pain. ''It's the Cowboys telling me I wasn't needed this year,'' he said as his new teammates wandered from the pool to minibuses that would take them to the nearby bungalows. ''They just told me they had other plans. They gave me a job there but, in saying that, I wasn't done playing. I've spent a long time there and I'm leaving all my mates behind. It was a bit hard at the start.''

''Mango'' said perception, all those stories about his knee cartilage being grown in a Petri dish, had a role his demise at the Cowboys. ''I think so, I got sick of getting asked about it and I'm sure the papers got sick of writing about it,'' he said. ''At the end of the day, I'm back playing and enjoying it.'' Bowen might have become a contortionist in the off-season, adding ''the knee's behind me''. When he received the news he had been dreading - and reading about - for months, Bowen said he did not seriously consider retiring, not for a second. Raw stats suggest his game is not what it was but, more than once, he was the Cowboys' best player last year. If he had been judged against the standards of others, and not his own from a decade ago, he would probably still be in the NRL.