The coaches & staff of the 2015 NSW Gen Blue U20s squad – Photo: Karen Watson

by Paul Cook –

While the NSW Waratahs fix their sights on defending their inaugural Super Rugby title, the work going on behind the state’s premier team towards ensuring they are banging on the door of success on a regular basis, is in full swing.

The Generation Blue program has just kicked off its second year in search of the next batch of Waratahs, pooling the cream of the state’s young talent and giving them the very best rugby education in terms of coaching, conditioning, skills and game knowledge.

Under the auspices of former Waratah Tim Rapp, the program garnered immediate results in year one, the U20s side lifting the inaugural National Championships title in Canberra. But while further titles would certainly be a pleasing yardstick by which to measure the progress being made, there is a bigger picture at play here.

“Our concept in the Generation Blue program is that, absolutely, the National Championships is something that we can use as a scale of how well we’ve gone in regards to our training but ultimately it’s a stepping stone on the path towards becoming a Waratah,” Rapp told Rugby News. “So our theme this year is not about becoming a New South Wales U20s player, it’s about a long term progression towards becoming Waratahs and this is the pathway for it.

Former Waratah Tim Rapp is now full time coach of the Gen Blue squad – Photo: Karen Watson

“Working closely with Michael Cheika and chief scout Tim Kelaher, we’re making sure we know who kids are from 15-years-old and hopefully we have a program that is well organised and doesn’t let any talented kids in the state out of our sights. We’ve only got so many spots per year but hopefully, we can make sure that those priority positions that open up when players come off contract, can be filled with New South Wales’ best athletes and the ones who have earned the right. We can’t pick all of them but we want to try and make sure that we get the right ones every time.”

Perhaps more importantly, grooming New South Wales talent that yearn to don the Cambridge Blue jersey of their state, is at the forefront of the battle plan.

“We want talented young rugby players wanting to be Waratahs again,” Rapp confirms. “That’s the biggest thing we need to push but they also need to see that there is a pathway for them to do that if they are playing top end footy. We’ve just got to be accurate in who we choose because New South Wales is the biggest producer of talent in Super Rugby, not just for our state but for others, so we have to make sure that when push comes to shove, they see that our program is producing Waratahs and they want to be one of those guys taking the next step.”

Rapp’s initial part-time role has become a full-time gig in 2015 and, alongside strength and conditioner Brad Harrington, and under the watchful eye of the Waratahs’ coaching think tank of Cheika, Darryl Gibson and Nathan Grey, he is overseeing a program designed to produce the prototype players required by Cheika to carry out his vision of the Waratahs’ way.

“The fact that myself and Brad are there full time, watching how the Waratahs train and having plenty of dialogue with ‘Cheik’, ‘Greysie’ and Darryl as to what they want from their players at Super Rugby level, means we’re now in a position where U20s players have to start ticking off skills that are required for them to be Waratahs.”

Which are?

“Physicality is a big thing, Cheik’s spoken a lot about that, but it’s probably more to do with the decision making,” Rapp explains. “We’re trying to encourage our footballers generically, not just our ball players, to become better decision makers on the footy field. We have a big focus on becoming attacking footballers with the ball and in getting it back defensively whilst making the right choice under pressure and backing your ability.”

With power and physicality the order of the day, the Gen Blue colts have been putting in plenty of work at the contact area – Photo: Karen Watson

Having started with a group of 60 towards the end of last year’s club and colts seasons, the number has since been culled to 35 before a final squad of 25 will be named for the National Championships in April. A training block that has been heavily biased towards producing greater power and size with two skills sessions and three weights sessions per week, will see a game knowledge day added from February onwards as the coaches look to build some rugby theory into their young charges prior to defending their title.

A series of trials begins on March 8th with a hit-out against NSW Country Colts and those players who make the final cut can look forward to three matches at the Nationals before their potential inclusion in the Aussie Junior World Cup squad, which will be named in June/July.

“This second year of the National Championships is going to be really valuable,” says Rapp. “We learned a fair bit last year in terms of how it worked and how valuable it was for those Australian U20s players heading into a Junior World Cup. From that, we’ve pulled out some aspects of our age group players compared to the rest of the world and where we need improvement so essentially, we should be sending our Australian U20s players to a Junior World Cup in better physical condition or tactically more astute and obviously, that’s got a flow-on effect up into the Wallabies as well.”

West Harbour’s Cameron Orr has impressed over the last few months – Photo: Karen Watson

Players such as Andrew Kellaway, Jack Dempsey and Jim Stewart have built on their solid years with the U20s in 2014 to sit on the verge of a Waratahs debut and Rapp thinks there may be plenty more potential rep players in his current crop.

“I think this year we’ll have a team that is a better bunch of rugby players while last year we had some really good standout players and some of that comes from the different preparation we’ve put in place but these guys are working really, really hard. Guys like Alex Newsome and Folau Faingaa are players you wouldn’t have heard of in the youth rep teams but who are doing really well, while some of the guys in their second year who are impressing are Jack McCalman, Mitch Short, Cameron Orr and then you have Matt Sandell who has actually done the whole pre-season with the Waratahs.”

It all sounds as though Tahs fans can rest easy that the future is in safe hands and one thing is for sure, there will be no stone left unturned under Cheika, Gibson, Grey, Rapp or Harrington’s watch when it comes to making the Waratahs a permanent fixture at the top of the Super Rugby ladder.

“We all have a real drive about a succession plan so when these players move on, when the coaches move on, everything is set up and ready to keep flying,” Rapp concludes. “The top end team are concerned with going back to back because they’re accountable but whilst they’re doing their best there, we’ve got a heap of blokes trying to set that succession plan up so that it is hopefully an achievable goal every year.”