‘Rare talent’: Westsfields Sports High star one to watch for Bulldogs fans
From superstars Jarryd Hayne and Israel Folau to Issac Luke and plenty more, the coach who has masterminded Westfields Sports High’s rugby league program has provided a rare insight into what makes this public school so hugely successful.
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It’s Sydney’s biggest and best nursery for our next generation of NRL stars.
And today the coach who has masterminded Westfields Sports High’s rugby league program for the past 17 years has provided a rare insight into what makes this public school at Fairfield West so hugely successful.
From superstars Jarryd Hayne and Israel Folau to Issac Luke, Luke O’Donnell, Trent Hodkinson and David Klemmer, the list of NRL graduates is as illustrious as it is long.
And it is now reaching almost phenomenal proportions, with some of the more recent young guns including Tommy Talau, Jason Saab, Sione Katoa, Brandon Wakeham and Jake Averillo, to name just a handful.
Throw in some of the most talked about teenagers currently on NRL development contracts, including Manly’s super talent Josh Schuster and the boom young forward Sione Fainu, and there’s no denying Westfields is schoolboy rugby league’s new benchmark.
Having won three of the past four NSW titles, Westfields also bowled over that star-studded Keebra Park team a few years back, that included Payne Haas and David Fifita, to be crowned national champs.
And ahead of the new schoolboy season that kicks off on August 12, coach Wayne Lambkin has also opened up about the stars of tomorrow who will have NRL clubs jumping over themselves for years to come.
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TOMORROW’S CHAMPIONS
You might want to write down these names because they would already be in the sights of every NRL talent scout.
Joseph O’Neill is a five-eighth on the books at Canterbury, and by Lambkin’s estimations a very rare talent. Now in his third year in the open team, the coach explained what makes O’Neill so special goes beyond athletic gifts.
“Joseph started in our open team at 16 and over the last 18 months has just improved out of sight,” Lambkin said.
“He is just a scholar of the game, and you wouldn’t meet a nicer kid. It’s not only his footy, he is so modest. You wouldn’t know he is as talented as what he is.”
He then picks out two towering brothers, Apisalome and Solomone Saukuru. Both stand about 193cm, and while they play front or backrow in the Bulldogs’ junior reps, at Westfields Lambkin plays Solomone at fullback or centre.
“I keep saying to him, ‘while you can play fullback and centre, why would you want to put your head in the forward pack?’”
Then there’s this flying Fijian hooker who play SG Ball for Souths, Tuvana Vesikula.
“Dynamic out of dummy half,” Lambkin said.
“He is Api Koroisau, could even been a little bit quicker.”
Every kid from Year 7 to 12, Lambkin knows their background, and more importantly what makes them tick.
There’s about 100 kids who try out for a spot in Westfields’ rugby league squads for every age every year, and of those only 20 can make each team. Which is why no one gets a free ride.
“No one gets scholarships here, the school is deadset against it,” Lambkin said.
“It sometimes goes against us because you’ve got Blacktown Pats and Fairfield Pats and the Catholic schools that do (give scholarships) … But they have always stuck solid here. It is a public high school and everything has to be above board, so we work with that.
“And we build our strength through coaching and having the discipline around them off the field.”
COACHING CULTURE
Long recognised as one of the best development coaches in the game who has also worked throughout the NRL, Lambkin is not a teacher but a pure football coach with a simple but successful philosophy.
“They want to win and I understand that so we give them all the kind of stuff they would get in any development pathway,” he explained.
“But the main purpose of my program from Year 7 to 12 is skill-based, and it’s a lot of repetitive stuff over six years.
“So when they do go to their clubs they can move through the grades with these skills rather than have to be stopped and coached.
“As an outside coach I will go and coach under-20s at Manly (where he won the comp in 2017) or the Tigers, and I have to spend a lot of my pre-season on simple stuff that I do with 13-year-olds here because they haven’t been taught those skills.
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“It is no good coming up with game plans with all these fancy plays if you can’t catch and pass.
“You have to start at the bottom. But I have just been up with the 15s now and they are hitting cutout passes down short sides, and halves are pushing up playing like Luke Keary (who Lambkin also coached in South Sydney’s lower grades).
“These kids are right up to it.
“The main objective here is to get them through so when they leave school, wherever they go, they are at their potential.”
Originally published as ‘Rare talent’: Westsfields Sports High star one to watch for Bulldogs fans