By Dan Walsh and Iain Payten
If you thought Joseph Suaalii’s rugby switch ruffled a few rugby league feathers this week, imagine it happening with a young Rooster named Fittler.
Or is he a young Waratah named Fittler? Or both?
It depends on who you ask.
But it is this emerging grey zone in junior pathways that has led to league and union both laying claim to Suaalii’s development. And it’s why as many as one in four players at some leading NRL clubs have a stint in rugby union on their CV.
Research by the Herald reveals a total of 86 players across this year’s 510 top 30 NRL spots – or 17 per cent of the league – played rugby at a competitive level. The minimum standard applied was First XV at school, or for a national representative underage side.
Unsurprisingly, rugby hopes to leverage that exposure to convince more to follow Suaalii’s footsteps.
Zach Fittler has been making waves in both codes.Credit: Bryden Sharp, NSW Rugby
Zach Fittler is the 16-year-old son of rugby league great Brad Fittler, and one of the Roosters’ brightest prospects. After starring for their Harold Matthews side, he was included in a Junior Blues squad at the end of 2022.
But the 105-kilogram centre also attends Scots College and plays rugby union. A month before Fittler was in camp with the Junior Blues, he went viral thanks to his dominant form for the Waratahs under-16s team in their victorious National Championship campaign.
In the same team were other highly touted players also on deals with NRL clubs, including Mitch Woods (Bulldogs), Charlie Poynton (Souths) and Alex Conti (Tigers).
“It was a bit of a wrap-our-arms-around-him approach, and see whether they bite at that opportunity,” NSW Rugby talent identification manager Andrew Cleverley says.
“See whether they feel there is a future in the game for him, and if the game fits the way they like to play. Sometimes that’s the key thing.
“Zach, in our opinion, fits a power athlete playing in the middle of the field. Zach Fittler definitely fits rugby union.
“There are a lot of kids these days who are both, they’re not just a rugby kid or a league kid. We call them dual athletes. And it can be a tough decision for kids who are brilliant at both games.”
For all the wooing by rugby, Fittler will, in all likelihood, follow in the footsteps of a majority of “dual coders” by picking league.
With a few notable examples, the powerful lure of the NRL has won most of the battles with rugby for top-tier talent for more than a decade.
But that has created an interesting – and increasing – subsection in NRL clubs of players who have rugby on their CVs and, in theory at least, could return to the game, like Suaalii.
Some clubs have more than others. The Roosters boast 10 such players, with genuine schoolboy stars such as Angus Crichton, Suaalii and Sam Walker among them. Souths and Melbourne, too, have found fortune with eight rugby-pedigree players apiece, led by Cameron Murray and former Wellington Hurricanes prospect Nelson Asofa-Solomona.
Recruitment in New Zealand and Fiji, where rugby is the predominant code, understandably accounts for some of the sport’s influx in league circles.
But for the past decade or so, longtime rugby strongholds in Sydney and Brisbane’s GPS school systems have been just as likely to produce an NRL name as a Super Rugby star.
The Dolphins have linked with Nudgee College as an incubator for their brightest juniors.
The Roosters have long encouraged their best youngsters into Sydney’s private schools, confident their juniors benefit from a top-rate education, training facilities that compare to that of an NRL club and the regimen of boarding school, without being convinced to take up rugby past year 12.
“Clubs know they can park a guy at a rugby school to develop them and then bring them back out with the attraction of an $80k contract, plus the potential for a career that obviously can go beyond that reasonably quickly,” says Storm captain Christian Welch, who was scouted in the rugby union state championships in his final year of school.
“They get world-class training, world-class facilities and then there’s the NRL top 30 that they can target. The minimum salary is going to be $130,000. Even our development lists are going to hit $80,000 provided the CBA talks work out how we want. That’s a lot of money at a young age.
“I don’t know that rugby union can compete with that.
“Rugby league to me is in such a strong position here. The system has a ‘free rider’ element to it. When you get on a train and get the benefit of it without paying for it, that’s [NRL CEO] Andrew Abdo and the NRL now, they don’t pay a dollar for the development some of these young guys get at the GPS schools.”
The individual financials Welch maps out are, along with Trent Robinson’s point that the NRL is the best rugby competition in the world, league or union, why NRL clubs don’t typically fear raids on junior stocks.
The minimum wage for a top 28 Super Rugby player is $85,000.
For some, the risk of a player’s head being turned to rugby by attending a GPS school is not only worth the reward, but inconsequential.
“The sports can co-exist for kids,” Eels head of recruitment Ben Rogers says, having been Souths’ list manager when Murray, Suaalii and Lachlan Ilias came through the ranks.
“When it comes to talking to juniors and families, their schooling is the most important part. You’ve got to look after someone beyond just footy and maybe a trade. Those GPS schools, they offer that, so how could you tell someone not to take a scholarship?
“I see it as no different to the general situation for teams like Parra, Penrith, Wests Tigers – we’ve all got a lot of kids in our own backyards already.
“If you can’t back your own pathway, and you can incorporate that rugby element into it, then you’ve got bigger problems than a few players getting swayed to rugby.”
Rugby has traditionally been off the pace in recruiting top teenage talent, and with the NRL going from strength to strength, plenty of schoolboy stars opt for the 13-man game.
But alert to the opportunities created by future NRL talent being exposed to rugby in their schoolboy years, Rugby Australia has been reshaping its pathway systems and competitions to try and make more hay.
Waratahs whiz kid Max Jorgensen, who the Roosters and Bulldogs fought hard to sign last year.Credit: Getty
The under-16s and under-19s national competitions were changed from a one-week carnival to a multi-week tournament in different cities, maximising the experience and time in the NSW or Queensland training environment, at the same venues as the professionals. The tournaments are streamed.
Where once kids on league deals at any age were not considered, Rugby Australia’s policy now is to include everyone, provided they don’t have a contract after their high school years.
“It can be a CV builder, and in this day and age it can be a highlights builder. Then their agents can flick that around, whether it be around Australia or around the world,” Cleverley says.
“We are trying to give these lads an opportunity to experience rugby and get an appreciation for the culture, the style of play we like to play here at the Waratahs, the high-performance attitude and experience we have, not only with this great facility but also with coaching methodologies, player feedback and all those things. The global nature of rugby is something we talk about to players and parents.”
The NRL’s strength, and rugby’s comparative weak point, is providing enough of a pathway for elite school leavers, who want to train full-time and keep building a career. The NRL offers a one-club solution but, outside the top tier, rugby offers academy deals and some years in the Shute Shield.
Rugby roots: Cameron Murray, Lachlan Ilias, Tolu Koula, Max Jorgensen and Joseph Suaalii.Credit: Getty, NRL Photos
In recent years, rugby lost Tolu Koula, Kaeo Weekes, Ilias and Suaalii, but won the fight for Max Jorgensen, Billy Pollard, Lukas Ripley and Mac Grealy.
And a decision made at 18 isn’t the end of the story, as far as rugby is concerned.
Rugby Australia keeps a master list of players with rugby experience and keeps in contact with agents about potential switches back. Tom Wright went to Manly from Joeys, but returned to rugby and is now a Wallabies mainstay.
Speaking on his podcast in an episode titled “You Get What You Pay For” on Friday, Wallabies coach Eddie Jones produced his own numbers about cross-code conversion at the highest level.
“The top 5 per cent of players in rugby league, and possibly rugby union, have the ability to play both sports,” Jones says.
“Then if you go to the top end of that, you’ve got your Sonny Bill Williams, your Lote Tuqiri, your Wendell Sailor, your Mat Rogers, Suaalii. They’re the guys who can play either sport. It’s a fascinating decision for those guys individually on how they look at their careers.”
The potential to play overseas is also on the table for NRL players with union experience, says Clinton Schifcofske, who played both codes at a professional level. He is now an agent who represents many NRL players who played the 15-man game at school, including Murray and Connor Watson.
“It’s common sense, isn’t it? They play both codes, so they have more options. I love both games but it’s pretty obvious there is so much opportunity internationally in rugby,” Schifcofske says.
“I tell kids I was 35 and still getting paid to play at Ulster. England, Ireland, Japan, France, South Africa, Argentina ... all rugby nations. The league boys are spoiled here but they’re not even close to rugby lads, globally.
“I had never played in my life, so when I switched it was so hard. But those kids who have played two or three years at school, they’re talented athletes so they pick it back up no worries. It is definitely an advantage.”
What comes next in this space, at the very least, is even more cross over. Welch believes the “horse has bolted” for rugby to reclaim league’s incursions into the GPS system.
For the one in six NRL players with some form of rugby pedigree, the figure is replicated, if not inflated, when development deals, SG Ball and Harold Matthews systems are included.
“I find the debate about rugby kids and league kids amusing, good luck splitting those hairs these days,” veteran Storm football manager Frank Ponissi says.
“It used to be black and white, but we’re not going back to that. You’ll only see more crossover, that one-in-six figure will only get bigger.”
Brad Fittler believes the NRL, overall, does a better job of catering for all kids in its grassroots levels but he is happy for his son Zach to be busy, active and juggling both.
“Both codes have different qualities, and both need to work on things as well,” Fittler says.
“At the end of the day, my son enjoys playing both. I try to just stay a fan and it can be tricky as a parent. Both codes are on offer there for him but I stay out of telling him anything really.
“I find he doesn’t listen to me anyway. I am just happy he is out enjoying himself.”
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