Coates chasing Oates
QUEENSLAND ace Corey Oates says Broncos rookies Xavier Coates and Herbie Farnworth will be NRL stars, claiming the duo are so talented they may squeeze him out of a Broncos wing spot.
Coates, likened in style to retired Maroons great Greg Inglis, and Farnworth, a former Manchester United prodigy, will make their debuts in the trip to Cronulla on Sunday.
Coates’ rise is so meteoric that, exactly one year ago, the teen sensation was playing for Marymount College in a Confraternity Carnival game on a Charters Towers backfield.
Coates, 18, and Farnworth, 19, played their first senior games at Warwick in February, the former scoring a try and the latter kicking five goals to contribute 14 points in Brisbane’s 42-0 drubbing of Souths Logan in a pre-season clash.
Now the young guns face the biggest shootout of their embryonic careers at a hostile PointsBet Stadium where Cronulla halves Chad Townsend and Shaun Johnson are sure to bomb the wingers.
Oates has been Brisbane’s premier winger for the past five seasons, but the off-contract 24-year-old is only halfjoking when he suggests Coates and Farnworth could turn up the heat on established stars.
“They are so talented I could be out of a job one day,” Oates said.
“They are massive talents. “Herbie is so fast and Xavier has great hands and a really good jump on him.
“Xavier is a monster for a young kid. At training one day we compared hand sizes and he has me covered easily.
“When he puts on a few kilos … holy hell, he is going to be a star in the NRL.”
The way Coates moves at 194cm and 100kg is eerily similar to Inglis. In May, the towering centre or winger carved up Illawarra in Tweed Heads’ 48-14 victory in the under-18s National Championship.
Coates scored two tries, including one solo moment of magic when he took the ball on his tryline and beat six Steelers defenders in a scorching 95m dash to the tryline, sealing his selection for the Queensland under-18s.
The Broncos moved to stave off a poaching threat for Coates on Tuesday, upgrading his deal until the end of 2021.