NRLW 2024: Former Wallabies star Nathan Grey’s daughter Georgia Grey makes cross-code switch to rugby league
Rugby union is in her blood but Georgia Grey, daughter of former Wallabies star Nathan Grey, has made the forbidden switch to rugby league and says she’s happier for it.
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Rugby union is in her blood but Georgia Grey is the latest player to make a switch to the “dark side”.
The 19-year-old daughter of Wallabies great Nathan Grey and god daughter of Rugby Australia boss Phil Waugh has switched codes to play NRLW with the Gold Coast this season.
On the heels of Rugby Australia stars Mark Nawaqanitawase (Roosters) and Carter Gordon (Titans) crossing the rugby divide, Grey is the latest to jump ship after being a part of the Sevens program in Queensland.
It was once her dream to represent Australia at the Olympics, but the Bond University student admits the grind of traveling to train and minimal game time got her down and she needed a change.
“At the start of this year I started losing a bit of the joy in playing sevens, the lack of consistency in games, with sevens you struggle to find game time, there’s little competitions here and there but you don’t get the consistency of playing each week. It was hard, mentally tough to motivate yourself to train when all you’re doing is training,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong, there was so many opportunities, I got to go to Hong Kong and play over there, I got picked in an Aussie A team for a trip to New Zealand, which was amazing.
“But I think I lost a bit of love for the sport and travelling to Brisbane three to four times a week while being at uni is hard. I would be at training at 4.30 which means leaving class early, it’s just mentally tough.
“This opportunity came up and I thought, I’m young, I’m only 19 and why not.”
THE PROMISED LAND
The attraction of a growing NRLW competition, decent wages and consistent game time is a huge draw card for many sevens athletes who have already made the jump across.
Several of Grey’s teammates at the Titans started out playing sevens, including Rio gold medallist Evania Pelite, New Zealand star Niall Williams-Guthrie, Lauren Brown and Emily Bass.
It’s the same across most NRLW teams.
This year Tyla King (Dragons) and Stacey Waaka (Broncos) will play for the New Zealand Sevens team at the Paris Olympics before returning to their NRLW team from round three.
Grey says there’ll be more to come.“It’s a massive chat (among the rugby sevens community), they joke about it all the time - ‘don’t go to the dark side’,” she says.
“It’s spoken about a lot and I think because sevens athletes are incredible, their fitness and everything, and league coaches just love that and they approach girls from the sevens all the time.
“It’s tough because there’s not a lot of money in sevens, not in the development side of it.
“I think for a lot of girls that turns their head a little bit.
“The sevens national team is pretty hard to crack.
“Some of the girls in that team now were in the Queensland academy for four years or so, so it’s hard work.”
FRESH START
Grey has been named at fullback for the Titans feeder team, Manly, in the Harvey Norman women’s premiership team this weekend, where she’ll play her first official game of rugby league.
She’ll fly down to get as much game time as possible before the NRLW season kicks off in three weeks.
With her mum, dad and three siblings living nearby on the Northern Beaches, it’s perfect.
“It was sad for me to leave my coaches because they’ve put so much time and effort into me, but they were really supportive of me and they knew I was struggling a little bit in wanting to come to training. I think they were like, we’ll support you all the way. Family, mum and dad were really supportive of that too,” she says.
Nathan Grey is the current Junior Wallabies coach but he’s happy if his daughter is.
“Dad was just like ‘go for it, if you want to pursue rugby league and give it a good crack, go for it’. They want me to be happy and they’re both very supportive. He’s very excited.”
The Olympics is not an option for rugby league players, but she hasn’t given up on her dream of representing Australia one day.
“You always want to represent your country, whether that’s with the Jillaroos or going to the Olympics,” she says.
“I’ll see how league goes, but that dream is on hold at the moment. I want to give league a really good go.”
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Originally published as NRLW 2024: Former Wallabies star Nathan Grey’s daughter Georgia Grey makes cross-code switch to rugby league
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