By Mark Cashman

If you trawl through some of the darker depths of the rugby league chat forums the name Sam Allsopp has cropped up in recent weeks.

West Tigers fans and a few a bit further east at the Roosters say they would love to see the Shute Shield rookie of the year on their roster by the time 2025 NRL season rolls around.

Allsopp is an impressive physical specimen with low skin folds, great balls skills and good tackle technique – first impressions yell NRL athlete.

Whether that happens at some stage remains to be seen, but the former Riverview first XV star is now a stock on the rise in rugby.

Allsopp it must be said is far from the rangy backrower that many like at the moment with the increasingly significant role that the lineout plays in the modern game, but his coach at Sydney Uni Todd Louden wouldn’t swap him.

“The thing that Sam brings is the impact that he has when he is near the action,” Louden says.

“When he touches the ball something just about always happens. He’s got a great sense of where the action is and his support lines in attack are outstanding.

“On top of all that he lead the tackle count for the Shute Shield side at Uni which says something about someone having their first year in grade.”

He was amongst the leading try scorers in the Shute Shield season just finished, crossing for 10 throughout the year, a difficult one for Uni where they finished out of the finals picture.

Allsopp was already highly touted as a No.8 coming through the Students colts pathway but Louden saw something different in Allsopp.

“I just felt that he was an out and out No.7 and although Sam wasn’t really over the moon about the move to the side of the scrum he said he would give it a crack,” Louden added.

“He took to it straight away and when I had a chat to him a month down the track he said that he loved the change of position and all it brought.”

Allsopp had a monster off season putting on a lot of “good weight” but the turning point came when the Students took on the Brumbies Runners in a pre-season trial and he came up against the impressive Rory Scott.

“That gave him an idea of where he was at and the things he needed to do to be competitive at senior levels,” Louden added.

“People have seen his growth this year and although he is probably built like a NRL player there seems to be plenty of organisations sniffing around to get him in their system.”

That would mean another monster off season and perhaps helping his Uni side back towards the top of the pile in Sydney rugby.