He’s one of the most unique young players in Australian rugby and after finally getting his body right, he might be about to make a name for himself on the international stage. 

Warringah’s Archie Saunders is in South Africa with the Junior Wallabies and after missing last years tournament, is more eager than most to get on the field. 

“Just before the first camp last year I injured my ankle in a trial game with the Waratahs and that ruled me out for a while, then I had a few hamstring issues and only ended up playing a handful of games towards the backend of last season unfortunately,” he told Rugby News before departing for the World Cup. 

“Then I missed the Rugby Championship with another niggly injury earlier this year as well so this will be my first crack in an Australian team and I’m really pumped to put on the jersey.”

Saunders seemed confident his injury woes were behind him though on the back of a solid few months of training that led to his Shute Shield grade debut with Warringah. 

“I’m feeling really good at the moment and to be honest I think it just took me a bit to get used to the training load. 

“Over summer, I had a big focus on putting more size on but it was size that I could handle and still keep my pace. 

“Last year, I felt pretty unfit because I was pretty much in the gym all year and didn’t get to play much, whereas this year I feel completely different.”

Saunders was a star on both the rugby field and the athletics track during his schooling years at Knox and joined the Waratahs after graduating at the end of 2022. 

“I did a fair bit of track and field back in the day but as the rugby stuff started to get more serious, I focussed more on that. 

“My quickest official time was 11.1 but I did that in year 9 so I’d be interested to see what I could do now that I’ve grown a bit.”

He also won a Shute Shield colts premiership under coach Josh Holmes late last year and is one of a number of young Rats that followed Holmes to grade over summer. 

Warringah missed the playoffs in 2023, but lead the Shute Shield competition after 11 rounds with just one loss to their name so far this season. 

“The boys are humming and things are looking good sitting in first place at the moment. 

“I got to experience playing finals with colts last year and that was probably the highlight of my footy career so far so I’d love to get a chance to do it again in grade. 

“There’s quite a few boys from last year’s colts side playing across first, second and third grade this year and we’re mostly local boys who grew up playing together or against one another through juniors. 

“The club is in a really good place and I’m looking forward to being involved as much as possible.”

But before that, Saunders is focused on the World Cup and pool matches against Georgia, Italy and Ireland, starting on Sunday morning (Australia time). 

“We’ve done a lot of homework and we know that most of the Northern Hemisphere teams will have us for size. But the new tackle height law probably suits us more than it does them and we’re pretty confident that we’ll be able to get low tackle dominance and play off the back of that.

“The goal is to win our pool, get through to the knockout stages and then win the tournament. We’re not going over there for anything less and I’m really confident we can do it.”