Update
Waratahs sign schoolboy
By Wayne Smith and Bret Harris
March 30, 2005
SCHOOLBOY sensation Kurtley Beale is poised to join New South Wales Waratahs in a deal that could see him become the youngest Australian to play at provincial and Test level.
Interest ... Beale in action. Pic: Todd Martyn-Jones
Beale, who turned 16 in January, is a Year 11 student at one of the country's most productive rugby nurseries, St Joseph's College in Sydney.
A five-eighth, he stamped himself as the hottest property in Australian rugby last year when he steered the college to an undefeated GPS premiership while still only 15.
The Australian understands Beale is committed to joining the Waratahs and that a third party has been locked into sponsoring him for $60,000 if he stays in rugby when he finishes school next year.
That plus a rookie contract with the Waratahs could see him earn around $100,000 next year, moving up to $110,000 in the World Cup year if he comes on to a full Super 14 contract with NSW.
Raised by his grandparents in Mount Druitt in Sydney's outer west, Beale has been mentored and managed by former Wallabies fullback Glen Ella for three years.
Ella would not comment on any deal with NSW, but Waratahs coach Ewen McKenzie confirmed he was interested in Beale.
"We are definitely interested in him. There's no doubt about that," McKenzie said.
"He is a kid at school. His future is in the future. I don't think he is going to solve any issues in the short term.
"He is a very good player and that has been acknowledged by not only rugby union but by rugby league.
"We have to make sure down the track that he wants to be a Waratah and therefore we'll sort it out down the track that he is."
Perth had also been eyeing the youngster but the team's chief executive Peter O'Meara wryly conceded yesterday he had no-one but himself to blame for losing him to the Waratahs because he alerted McKenzie to Beale's prodigious talent last year.
At the time, O'Meara was a NSW Rugby Union board member.
"I've been watching him for some time," said O'Meara, whose son attended St Joseph's. "I went to 'Link' (McKenzie) about him and persuaded him to come and watch Kurtley play."
McKenzie insisted yesterday he was already well aware of Beale before O'Meara spoke to him, having been told about him by Ella when the two of them were on the Wallabies coaching staff as assistants to Eddie Jones.
So impressed was McKenzie when he saw Beale play that he invited the teenager, a boarder at St Joseph's for the past four years, to train with the Waratahs.
But it was last month's appointment of O'Meara as chief executive of the new Perth Super 14 team that appears to have prompted NSW to act quickly to keep the schoolboy sensation.
"As soon as NSW heard I had been named as the Perth CEO, they immediately made contact with Glen Ella," said O'Meara, the man who, as a Brisbane Souths official in the late 1980s, recruited another extraordinarily gifted footballer, Tim Horan, out of Year 11 at Downlands College.
"I put Kurtley up there with Tim. He has beautiful hands, a very soft touch and he does everything well."
It is understood the Australian Rugby Union has not been directly involved in the contractual negotiations, but has taken it upon itself to safeguard Beale's interests by making the Waratahs aware of the legal constraints involved in signing a contract with a minor.
Ben Whitaker, the ARU's elite player development officer, is believed to be monitoring the situation to ensure Beale is not rushed too quickly into professional football.
However, Mark Loane, who in 1973 became the youngest Australian to play Test football when he made his debut against Tonga in Sydney at the age of 18, said yesterday if Beale had the talent, he should not be held back.
"I probably was under pressure when I first played for Australia but I was too young to realise it," Loane said.
"The only way to learn how to play Test football is by playing it."
Nobody is seriously suggesting Beale will be seen in a gold jumper this side of the World Cup in 2007, but already experienced critics are comparing him to Mark Ella.
The Australian
