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Victoria might be AFL heartland but that won’t stop Melbourne from storming its most ambitious player development goal to date – turning the state’s best Aussie Rules junior talent into NRL stars.
Rugby league is enjoying record junior participation rates in Victoria, where 6,230 players are now registered to play the sport – which is a remarkable 67 per cent increase since 2021.
And the Storm will get a free kick, and a chance to capture the attention of more Victorians, as the only football show in town this week with the AFL in Adelaide for Gather Round.
Melbourne now also boasts a full suite of elite junior development pathways from Harold Matthews (under-17s) to its NRL program, after introducing a Storm reserve grade side in NSW Cup for the first time ever this year.
While the development of rugby league juniors remains the top priority for the Storm, general manager Frank Ponissi says targeting junior Aussie Rules talent is the next frontier in the powerhouse NRL club expanding its Victorian footprint.
“That’s an untapped market,” Ponissi said.
“It only needs one elite player to make the switch, but it will be a lot easier for us to target players for the junior representative level rather than at NRL level.
“We’ve done so much work in our pathways and development it hasn’t been a priority.
“But it will be.
“We’ll start looking at how we can get some AFL kids over and into our pathways.
“It’s definitely got potential.”
FILLING THE VOID
In the meantime, a more pertinent opportunity in the code’s battle for junior talent has arisen for the Storm – the demise of Super Rugby club, the Melbourne Rebels.
The Rebels were deregistered back in 2024, leaving a void in rugby union elite pathways in Victoria. Enter the Storm.
In the northern state, and over in New Zealand, the cross-code battle for young talent is hotter than ever. The Warriors are making significant headway, in a rugby-mad nation, to lure elite schoolboys from the 15-man game to rugby league.
The Storm now have a similar opportunity to recruit more players like exciting prospect Hugo Peel, who was a star rugby schoolboys player for St Kevin’s College in Toorak.
Former Melbourne winger turned SG Ball coach Matt Duffie, who also played for the All Blacks, says while the loss of the Rebels is setback for kids who want to play union it has opened up a new opportunity for the Storm.
“All of a sudden the tap has been turned off in terms of rugby pathways and one place you are going to lose players is to us at the Storm,” Duffie said.
“There’s the aspiration piece too, a kid can come to, or watch, a Storm game and there’s a purple jersey out at AAMI Park.
“They can’t see the Rebels out there any more … they have to move away from home to play rugby. We can give them opportunities to stay in Victoria and develop, and they have a pathways to play in.”
ROAD TO AAMI PARK
Melbourne has had incredible success nurturing talent from southeast Queensland via its Academy in the region. It’s a path that has unearthed some of the game’s best talents of their generation, including Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Cameron Munster and Harry Grant.
Ponissi says the club will still identify talent from Queensland, but investing in Victorian pathways, and the Melbourne based Storm Academy, is crucial to the Storm’s future success.
“When we introduced Harold Matthews (under-17s) in 2024, we made a decision that would only recruit players from Victoria into that side,” he said.
“We might sign young players from elsewhere, but we will keep that at home and bring them into our SG Ball squad.”
That decision is helping Melbourne keep talented youngsters in Victoria longer.
“What we are finding is that before the ‘Road to AAMI Park’ program, there were a lot of young players aged between 13 and 16 that saw no pathway here in Melbourne.
“They were heading in droves to league schools in Queensland like Keebra Park and Palm Beach Currumbin, getting scholarships and going to those schools.
“That’s dried up significantly.
“They are staying in Melbourne because they can see a pathway.”
SUA FA’ALOGO CUP
At the heart of the Melbourne Storm is the club’s Polynesian representation, with 68 per cent of players identifying as either Maori or Pasifika.
While junior participation numbers in the state are also being fuelled by the growing Polynesian population, particularly in the northern outskirts of Melbourne.
Electric fullback Sua Fa’alogo, who moved to Melbourne from Samoa as a 13-year-old, has emerged as a poster boy of the club’s pathways program.
Fa’alogo, who is only the fifth Victorian to debut for the Storm, is also seen as a powerful influence in inspiring the next generation of NRL stars from Victoria.
Especially those from the Pasifika community.
“Sua is not only a perfect example of what we want to achieve, but he is inspiring even more kids to play rugby league,” Ponissi said.
“As a talent identification, and a chance to give players a chance to play at a more elite level, we created the Sua Fa’alogo Cup last year.
“We now have 12 under-16s teams in Victoria, and we divide those teams into the three hubs – North, Southeast and West.
“The best players from that region were selected to play for their hub in a round-robin tournament. North hub, which is where Sua is from, actually won it.
“The Harold Matthews coaching staff get to watch the players and pick the squad for our under-17s representative team.”
SG BALL SUCCESS
Melbourne have now debuted six Victorian players, with Altona Roosters junior Siulagi Tuimalatu-Brown the most recent to pull on the purple jumper.
Other local products Hugo Peel, Suli Pole and Jerry Musu have all been promoted from the pathways into the full-time NRL squad in 2026.
While, developed players like Preston Conn, Angus Hinchey and Sunshine Coast product Cooper Clarke, who has re-signed until the end of 2029, have all debuted in 2026.
That production line is set to continue, with a record 20 players from Victoria featuring in this year’s SG Ball (under-19s) outfit, which is headed for a second-straight finals appearance after finishing second after winning seven from eight games this season.
“This is our third year of running with Harold Matthews Victorian policy, those 20 Victorian players are the benefactors of that policy,” he said.
“When you combine that with some outstanding players from outside the area, we have a very talented and competitive squad that is playing in the finals this week.
“The policy gives them two years in an intense professional environment, which they have not been exposed to in Victoria, and now we are seeing the benefit of that at SG Ball level.”
STORMY CHALLENGES
While the Storm are pushing full-steam ahead with its pathway program, the state still faces a number of challenges when it comes to growing participation numbers at a junior level.
The biggest challenge being raising the quality of coaching on offer for young talent.
To tackle the issue, and other participation obstacles, the NRL has appointed Storm Old Boy Adam Woolnough as its general manager of NRL Victoria and South Australia.
“The numbers are great,” Ponissi said.
“But we can’t get carried away because if they are not getting quality coaching they might leave the sport, or they are not getting the right development by the time they get to us.
“We have to improve coach education in that state.
“It’s not at the same level in other states, so we have to lift that.”
In 2024, a $22 million rugby league hub, jointly funded by the Victorian Government, Hume City Council, NRL and the Storm, opened its doors as the new home to the club’s male and female pathways programs.
But at a grassroots and junior rugby league level, there are growing challenges around access to facilities and footy grounds.
One local club, the Truganina Rabbitohs has this year had to knock back registrations because facilities were not adequate.
RISE OF STORM’S NRLW PATHWAYS
As Melbourne’s male pathways system goes from strength to strength, Pauline Poloai is making sure female players are not being left behind.
Poloai, the Storm’s female pathways manager, has played an integral role in helping the club enter a Lisa Fiola (under-17s) and Tarsha Gale (under-19s) outfit into the NSWRL for the first time in 2026.
The Storm will expand the female program in coming years, with plans to introduce a senior side in the Harvey Norman women’s premiership in 2028, before eventually boasting an NRLW outfit.
Poloai says the junior representative sides are a crucial step in ensuring young NRLW hopefuls have access to elite junior development opportunities in Melbourne.
“Having Victorian girls who want to aspire to play NRLW for the Storm is the goal,” Poloai said.
“Rather than girls coming from Sydney or Queensland, the focus is to build our talent from within and we definitely have that talent.
“We want to increase the participation at the elite level and give as many girls exposure to what it takes to be the athlete they need to be for the NRLW level.”
Canterbury supremo Phil Gould was pivotal in rebuilding Penrith’s pathways, which have been the backbone of the club’s resurgence as a premiership force.
Now his son, Jack Gould, has joined the Storm ranks with the aim of helping turn Melbourne’s female pathways into a powerhouse in its own right.
“We’re lucky enough to have Jack Gould looking after our female coaching programs,” Poloai said.
“We thought he was the best person to drive female development at the representative level from the bottom up having come from a NSW system, where he was working at Cronulla,
“His expertise will be invaluable, having overseen Cronulla, who went from no NRLW team to having representation at all levels.”
Already, a number of rising stars are turning heads at the Storm, including forward Harmony Tupou and playmaker Halo Titimaea, who will lead the Lisa Fiola side in their first ever finals appearance on Saturday.
“Harmony and Halo have really taken on board the systems and structures at the representative level,” Poloai said.
“They have bright futures ahead of them. They will be bottom age Tarsha Gale next year, so they are fast-tracking quite well.”
