Sydney University Football Club will be providing 14 players in the 38-man NSW Waratahs squad for the 2016 Super Rugby season.
They include four props, with the experienced Paddy Ryan and Jeremy Tilse being joined by young guns Matt Sandell, elevated from the 2015 development squad to the extended playing squad, and Tom Robertson, who joins the extended playing squad.
They’ll be joined in the pack by hooker Tolu Latu, and second-rowers Will Skelton, Dean Mumm and Dave Dennis, who can also slot into the backrow.
In the backs, SUFC provides Wallaby halfbacks Nick Phipps and Jake Gordon, five-eighth Bernard Foley, centre Jim Stewart, elevated from the 2015 supplementary squad along with winger Henry Clunies-Ross, and Wallaby fullback Israel Folau.
The 38-man squad includes five NSW players elevated to core playing squad, 23 players retained from the 2015 squad and 14 players with international Test cap experience. And 33 of the 38 players were born in NSW.
The NSW Waratahs kick off their 2016 Super Rugby season on Saturday, February 27, against the Queensland Reds at Allianz Stadium, where all eight of the NSW Waratahs home matches will be held in 2016.
Meanwhile, SUFC players Tom Kingston and Greg Jeloudev have been included in the Australian Sevens squad to contest the third leg of the Sevens World Series, to be played in Wellington, New Zealand.
Interim Head Coach Scott Bowen has selected a relatively inexperienced squad for the trip to New Zealand’s North Island with Henry Hutchison, Boyd Killingworth, Tom Kingston and Stefan Van Der Walt, all debutants this season, in the squad.
World Series regulars James Stannard, playmaker Allan Fa’alava’au and outside back Greg Jeloudev will also play at Westpac Stadium. Nick Malouf (knee), Pama Fou (shoulder) and SUFC’s Pat McCutcheon (hamstring) were both unavailable due to injury.
Australia has been drawn in Pool D alongside Kenya, Canada and Portugal at the Wellington Sevens.
