At just 20, Melbourne young gun Jack Maddocks leads the NRC competition in metres gained, has the second most carries of any player and is third on the stats sheet for clean breaks, defenders beaten and offloads. Not bad for a kid who admits he’d barely even walked into a gym 18 months ago. “When I first came down to the Rebels last year, I remember I picked up one of the smaller dumbbells and I got some pretty strange looks from the older boys and that made me realise I had a long road ahead of me,” Maddocks recalled. “I used to really hate the gym and it probably took me a few months to get used to it but once you spend a bit more time there and get proper coaching, it becomes a bit less of a chore and it gives you a bit of an appetite to get stuck in.” Since that first awkward morning in the gym, the Australian U20s star fullback has added 5kg to his 194cm frame and more than halved his body fat, but he says he’s still got a long way to go. “We’ve got