How Benji turned Tiger
MAY 22, 2002: He’s since gone on to win NRL titles, play more than 300 games and become an icon of the game, but Benji Marshall’s rise from Keebra Park High can be traced back to one smart move.
THE big guns from Sydney’s Wests Tigers National Rugby League club turned out in force at Keebra Park State High School.
Coach and former international five-eighth Terry Lamb, football operations manager Steve Lavers and chief executive officer Steve Noyce were there.
As Noyce said, it was as much about getting to know the faces as it was about kicking off a new partnership between the club and the school.
That’s why Noyce had taken the trip north to meet talents such as the highly rated Benji Marshall.
Noyce could talk face-toface with principal Fran Jones, the school’s football manager Peter Craig and senior coach Greg Lenton.
“We want this partnership to work so it’s important to get to know the people involved,” Noyce said.
Wests Tigers are looking at a result that will provide a pathway for talented, skillready rugby league players that leads to their door.
For Keebra Park there will be an injection of scholarship funds and gear that will total about $12,000 a year.
There will also be available the latest knowledge from Wests Tigers on subjects such as training methods, medical information and rehabilitation.
The benefits to the Gold Coast don’t stop there.
Keebra will pass this knowledge on through their web of contacts and clinics in numerous primary schools.
Lavers said rugby league clubs now had to be interested in “the whole person’’.
Almost 50 per cent of the Tigers-contracted players are in full-time studies, from civil engineering to journalism.
Neither club nor school are interested in just sport.
The 140-odd students who take rugby league as a subject at Keebra Park High must get the academic mix right or they can forget playing the football.
The Tigers don’t have any Queenslanders in their 26man squad but Lamb can see that changing pretty soon.
“There is so much talent in this region. I am sure we’ll see a few of these faces in the black and gold sooner than later,” he said.
WE WANT THIS PARTNERSHIP TO WORK SO IT’S IMPORTANT TO GET TO KNOW THE PEOPLE INVOLVED