The NSW Waratahs stocks are building nicely with seven more players named as signings for the NSW Waratahs Academy. Seven more players have been announced as newcomers to the Academy: Zach Fittler, Nick Hill, Sam Blank, Toby Brial. Marshall Le Maitre, Luca Cleverley and Jonty Fowler.
This follows the recent signings of Leo Jacques, Eamon Doyle, Joey Fowler, Edwin Langi Wyatt Ballenger and Ottavio Tuipulotu to the Academy and bodes well for NSW rugby.
An exciting year awaits with the flagship team, the NSW Waratahs, having been rebuilt under a new Head Coach Dan McKellar, preparing for the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific season at full-strength. But the recruitment of these Academy players provides the NSW Waratahs a deep developing talent pool across the Under 15, 16, 18 and 19 age groups.
The NSW Waratahs Academy teams have made great inroads; especially the undefeated Under 16 team that won the 2024 Under 16 Super Rugby Championship. This age group is yet to be beaten at this level.
NSW Waratahs Acting Director of Performance Andrew Cleverley said: “It's brilliant to have worked with Rugby Australia and their backers to secure this talent and give these players the opportunity to show if they can bridge the gap between being talented schoolboy players to a professional player.
“Our objective is to try and give these players the training opportunities, high performance exposure through the gym, nutrition, on field training and the mental skills work; so that they perform in their Shute Shield rugby teams and the representative teams they play in.”
Hopes are high that the latest coterie of seven players to join the NSW Waratahs Academy will add depth to the talent shown from previous recent Academy signings.
“Add all of them together, we have an outstanding group of twenty young men that will push the established players for 2026, 2027, and the future,” Cleverley said.
“We will bring out the best of those players contracted to push the professionals.”
Recruitment is ongoing. “There are more contracts we are working on,” Cleverley said.
“These are exciting times for rugby, to have the ability to be able to financially support our players to come in and train, develop and learn is very satisfying.”
Cleverley is especially excited about the potential of NSW’s Under 16 group that won the 2024 Super Rugby competition and played through the season undefeated.
“There's a really talented group of players there,” Cleverley said. “We have some of that team already on contract, Hasani Bloomfield, Tahj Smith, Justice Taumoepeau, Jarryd King and Flynn Farrell they played key roles in the squad’s success this year.”
It shows that while the Wallabies are impressing on their tour of the United Kingdom and the NSW Waratahs are preparing hard for the 2025 Super Rugby Pacific competition, plenty of progress has been made in developing NSW’s rugby ranks for years to come.
“States like New South Wales and Queensland are always going to produce a large amount of talent,” Cleverley said. “For us, it is about capturing and guiding the best of that talent, pushing them, and turning them into Waratahs and Wallabies.”
