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Hard yards await Trent
By Greg Pritchard
November 30, 2003
The Sun-Herald
I'LL LIFT MY GAME: Trent Waterhouse says he is looking forward to being tested next season.Picture: ADAM HOLLINGWORTH
Trent Waterhouse jokes that he might retire because he couldn't imagine football getting any better for him than it did this year.
In reality, he has already set his main goal for next season and it has nothing to do with winning premierships or getting picked in representative teams.
"I don't want to become a victim of second-year syndrome," he says, in reference to the trap some good young players fall into after starring in their first full year in the top grade.
They think the following season is automatically going to be the same or even better, but they become targets for opponents who didn't have time to work them out on the run before. If they're not ready for the extra attention, they go backwards.
"Every team is going to lift when they play Penrith because we're the premiers," Waterhouse says.
"And because I made the [Kangaroo] tour and was lucky enough to play in the Tests, they're going to get after me more, too.
"All I can do to try to handle that is work harder and lift my game, but I'm sort of looking forward to being tested like that. I think it'll be good for me."
Waterhouse's journey has been an amazing one already and it has really only just begun.
His rise over the course of this year could have left him with a big head, but it was only seven months ago that he was getting up at 4am to work as a storeman because he wasn't earning enough from football to survive, and only two years ago that he was playing A grade rather than NRL.
The freshness of those memories helps keep things in perspective.
Waterhouse quit the job in April, after the Panthers recognised that he could go places fast and increased his deal. He has since struck a further deal tying him to the club for the next three years.
"I bought a house a couple of years ago, but I couldn't afford the repayments on what I was getting out of football," he said. "It wasn't much to speak of.
"Richo [Penrith chief executive Shane Richardson] asked me if I wanted to join the full-time squad and I jumped at it. That was in April and I can't believe what's happened to me since. It's been so incredible that it still hasn't really sunk in.
"We won the premiership and a few of us made the Kangaroo tour and I was sitting in the meeting room when Opes [Australian coach Chris Anderson] read the team out for the first Test against the Poms and said my name. I felt numb. I was just in shock about it.
"I'd love to play for NSW next year and all of us at Penrith would love to win the premiership again, but we know it's going to be a lot harder now everyone's gunning for us. If we don't improve we can forget about winning comps or playing rep games."
Waterhouse, 22, played all three Tests off the bench against Great Britain, making an impact each time he went on.
His strength, his ability to get the ball away in traffic and the fact he plays second-row, and a bit of prop, has cast him as the new millennium version of John Cartwright, the tremendous ball-playing second-rower for the Panthers in the 1980s and '90s.
"Trent reminds me a hell of a lot of Carty," says Greg Alexander, the captain of Penrith's premiership-winning team of 1991 and now a board member at the club.
"He's got that amazing ability to somehow get the ball away when it looks like a pass isn't on."
No wonder Penrith's running players, such as fullback Rhys Wesser and five-eighth Preston Campbell, trail after Waterhouse more than they do any other forward at the club.
Any forward who is prepared to try to get the ball away when defenders are swarming, at the risk of copping the occasional high shot, is tough and Richardson and Penrith coach John Lang knew what they were getting when they joined the club at the end of 2001.
They watched a video of Waterhouse playing for Emu Plains against St Dominics in the A-grade grand final, in which he suffered a badly broken nose and a shut eye as a result of a brawl in the opening minute.
"He looked like a piece of war-torn Europe when they took him off," Richardson says.
"But he went back on for the second half and did a job for his team. That's tough.
"We added him to our squad straight away after we saw that."
By Greg Pritchard
November 30, 2003
The Sun-Herald
I'LL LIFT MY GAME: Trent Waterhouse says he is looking forward to being tested next season.Picture: ADAM HOLLINGWORTH
Trent Waterhouse jokes that he might retire because he couldn't imagine football getting any better for him than it did this year.
In reality, he has already set his main goal for next season and it has nothing to do with winning premierships or getting picked in representative teams.
"I don't want to become a victim of second-year syndrome," he says, in reference to the trap some good young players fall into after starring in their first full year in the top grade.
They think the following season is automatically going to be the same or even better, but they become targets for opponents who didn't have time to work them out on the run before. If they're not ready for the extra attention, they go backwards.
"Every team is going to lift when they play Penrith because we're the premiers," Waterhouse says.
"And because I made the [Kangaroo] tour and was lucky enough to play in the Tests, they're going to get after me more, too.
"All I can do to try to handle that is work harder and lift my game, but I'm sort of looking forward to being tested like that. I think it'll be good for me."
Waterhouse's journey has been an amazing one already and it has really only just begun.
His rise over the course of this year could have left him with a big head, but it was only seven months ago that he was getting up at 4am to work as a storeman because he wasn't earning enough from football to survive, and only two years ago that he was playing A grade rather than NRL.
The freshness of those memories helps keep things in perspective.
Waterhouse quit the job in April, after the Panthers recognised that he could go places fast and increased his deal. He has since struck a further deal tying him to the club for the next three years.
"I bought a house a couple of years ago, but I couldn't afford the repayments on what I was getting out of football," he said. "It wasn't much to speak of.
"Richo [Penrith chief executive Shane Richardson] asked me if I wanted to join the full-time squad and I jumped at it. That was in April and I can't believe what's happened to me since. It's been so incredible that it still hasn't really sunk in.
"We won the premiership and a few of us made the Kangaroo tour and I was sitting in the meeting room when Opes [Australian coach Chris Anderson] read the team out for the first Test against the Poms and said my name. I felt numb. I was just in shock about it.
"I'd love to play for NSW next year and all of us at Penrith would love to win the premiership again, but we know it's going to be a lot harder now everyone's gunning for us. If we don't improve we can forget about winning comps or playing rep games."
Waterhouse, 22, played all three Tests off the bench against Great Britain, making an impact each time he went on.
His strength, his ability to get the ball away in traffic and the fact he plays second-row, and a bit of prop, has cast him as the new millennium version of John Cartwright, the tremendous ball-playing second-rower for the Panthers in the 1980s and '90s.
"Trent reminds me a hell of a lot of Carty," says Greg Alexander, the captain of Penrith's premiership-winning team of 1991 and now a board member at the club.
"He's got that amazing ability to somehow get the ball away when it looks like a pass isn't on."
No wonder Penrith's running players, such as fullback Rhys Wesser and five-eighth Preston Campbell, trail after Waterhouse more than they do any other forward at the club.
Any forward who is prepared to try to get the ball away when defenders are swarming, at the risk of copping the occasional high shot, is tough and Richardson and Penrith coach John Lang knew what they were getting when they joined the club at the end of 2001.
They watched a video of Waterhouse playing for Emu Plains against St Dominics in the A-grade grand final, in which he suffered a badly broken nose and a shut eye as a result of a brawl in the opening minute.
"He looked like a piece of war-torn Europe when they took him off," Richardson says.
"But he went back on for the second half and did a job for his team. That's tough.
"We added him to our squad straight away after we saw that."
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