‘This kid is different level’: Why Waratahs have faith in Jorgensen despite horror ru

Iain Payten, The Age
February 18, 2024

A year is a long time in football and Max Jorgensen’s first as a professional rugby player saw him travel further than most 18-year-olds.
But after dazzling in his Super Rugby debut season last year, and then earning a shock call-up to the Wallabies’ World Cup squad, Jorgensen will find himself back at a familiar starting line when he suits up for the Waratahs in their Super Rugby opener on Saturday.
After getting through a 40-minute stint for the Waratahs’ A team in a trial on Saturday, Jorgensen is set to line up for NSW against the Reds at Suncorp Stadium on Saturday.
It will be the teenager’s first competition game almost nine months, after a knee injury ended last year’s Super Rugby season prematurely, and a broken ankle then denied him a probable Test debut at the World Cup.
Throw in an off-season procedure on his shoulder and Jorgensen has only been out of rehab and back in full training with the Waratahs for a total of around three weeks.
“That has been the disappointing thing for Max. He got injured last year and then went to the World Cup and got injured again, and then he came back and had to get his shoulder fixed up after all that,” Waratahs backs coach Chris Whitaker said.
“As a young footy player, you want to see them on the training field as much as you can. But unfortunately, he has been in the rehab the whole time, so he has only been training for the last three weeks or so.
“He hasn’t had a heap of footy, but Jorgo is Jorgo – he is a confident kid. As soon as he comes in, you can see the difference in him.
“He is ready to go, but whether you want to play him 80 minutes and risk him or not, I guess is the question. He is up for selection, but we need to be sensible with him.”
Certainly, confidence is in high supply for Jorgensen. Whitaker recalls also having a sense of natural caution around the rookie before last season.
“Even before he came in, myself and a few other coaches were like, ‘There is no way a kid straight out of school is going to play Super Rugby so let’s just take it easy’. But he came in and lit it up. We were like, ‘Whoa, this kid is different level’,” Whitaker said.
“He won’t have any problems getting back into from a confidence perspective. But he has only played that half a game so we will to try and be sensible with him and make sure he can have a full season and a strong year.”
The Waratahs are expecting Izzy Perese and Fergus Lee-Warner to be available for selection after the pair both returned from injury in the Waratahs A trial against Warringah and Manly on Saturday.
Ned Hanigan is also expected to be available for selection after missing all the trials, but senior forwards Dave Porecki and Hugh Sinclair are both still under injury clouds with calf/Achilles tendon issues picked up against the Rebels.
With most of their first-choice players resting, the Waratahs fielded inexperienced players against the Rats and the Marlins, and drew 7-all in the first half and won 10-0 in the second. Whitaker praised the strength of the club sides and said coaches were pleased the effort of young Waratahs development players.
Asked if he was concerned with the Waratahs’ lacklustre trial form this year, Whitaker said: “It is weird isn’t it? If we were playing really good footy right now I would almost be nervous as well.
“I was speaking with Joe Schmidt the other day and he said in his three or four years at Leinster, he didn’t win one trial the whole time he was there. The Crusaders are a classic, too – and we are not saying we are the Crusaders or Leinster here – but the Crusaders are a classic one, they’ve often started quite slow and then built into the season and peaked at the right time.
“We probably would’ve like to show a bit more in the trials. Just a bit more cohesion. That’s what we are really looking for. Not so much the detail or what we are doing, but the eagerness to get set and get in position and things like that.”