Hardworking Queensland Country No.8 Harry Wilson wins the Round 5 nomination for the 2019 National Rugby Championship Rising Star award.
Launched in 2018, and won in a landslide by Fijian Drua star Alivereti Veitokani, the award recognises emerging players with fewer than three games of Super Rugby or fewer than three Tests for the Flying Fijians.
Wilson has been one of the standouts for Queensland Country in the NRC this season, and his superb showing against Brisbane City in their Andy Purcell Cup clash was a huge reason the country cousins reclaimed the annual bragging rights.
Someone who has seen his rapid rise first-hand is Country coach Rod Seib, who doubles as Wilson’s club coach Queensland Premier Rugby powerhouse, Brothers.
“He’s someone who I first came across in Queensland Schoolboys,” Seib told me this week. “In a really short space of time – it’s been 12 months since I came across him in Schoolboys and into club rugby –he’d physically developed so much that you could see how much he’d put in off the field and that has really been reflected in his performances on the field over this past year.
“He’s a guy who’s got an enormous amount of potential, really on the back of the fact he’s got such a large skill set.
“He’s so hard to contain, he’s a really strong ball-carry, he’s got great skills, he reads the defence very well. So he really is a multi-talented player.”
That talent has been on display from the outset in this season’s NRC, where Wilson leads the competition for ball carries, shares the most offloads with Queensland Reds squad-mate, Brisbane City captain and last week’s Rising Star nominee Fraser McReight, and quite incredibly, is in the top five for metres gained.
And that last stat is worth pausing on. Wilson, in fifth on 336 metres from five games, trails four outside backs: Brisbane City’s Jordan Luke, Western Force flyer Jonah Placid, NSW Country fullback Tim Clements, and Queensland Country speedster Filipo Daugunu in top spot.
A no.8 in the kind of space that puts him up with this sort of company is a no.8 worth watching.
But his set piece work is just as excellent, scoring both of Country’s first two tries in Gladstone on the weekend from the back of the scrum, and both of them inside the first twenty minute of the game.
The best way I could describe his scrummaging to Seib was to call it Higginbotham-esque.
“Yeah, and he does a lot of work on that, on controlling the ball at the back. He’s quite meticulous with his preparation, and you could see that on the weekend,” the Country coach agreed.
“Any of those players who tend to kick on post-Schoolboys and into professional ranks, they’re the ones who put in the hard work. Harry fits in that category, he understands the correlation between hard work and success,” Seib said.
As with Brothers teammate McReight last week, Wilson represent yet another product off the Queensland backrower conveyor belt, which has already delivered Angus Scott-Young, Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, Michael Wood, and Liam Wright in the last few seasons.
I put it to Seib that they must be something in the Breakfast Creek water at the back of Ballymore.
“Yeah, I don’t know, but they’ve certainly created a great environment at the Reds, where you’ve got all of these young guys who are competing for a few positions. You know the Reds are going to benefit from all that competition,” he says.
“But yeah, you are right, there’s an amazing amount of strength coming through in the back row.”
Seib mentioned Wilson’s skill set several times through our chat, and it’s certainly clear that Wilson has a healthy array of abilities for a young player still a month or two shy of his 20th birthday.
“He’s got this incredible offload, and often some blokes around him aren’t really aware it’s going to come if they haven’t played with him very much,” the Country coach begins.
“On the weekend, for an example, from a restart he’s attacked an edge and got an offload, and it went to a knock-on, and I really think it was because the bloke didn’t expect it was coming.
“He’s really got that skill set that other blokes don’t, he’s got the potential to spark something up.”
And worryingly, or perhaps excitingly, if backrowers kicking is your thing, it seems young Harry Wilson’s bag of tricks doesn’t just end with his hands.
“I know he’s got a kicking game there, but I keep telling him that I don’t want to see it,” Seib laughs.
“He kept trying to show me at club footy that he could use his kicking game, but I kept telling him that he shouldn’t, which is a bit of a joke that’s kept going now.
“But I’m really pleased that he’s tucked his kicking game away for the NRC and he’s just dominating through his carries.
“It might bring the crowds back, but it only frustrates coaches!”
NRC RISING STAR NOMINEES
Round 1: Will Harrison (Sydney flyhalf)
Round 2: Connor Vest (NSW Country lock)
Round 3: Noah Lolesio (Canberra flyhalf)
Round 4: Fraser McReight (Brisbane City backrower)
Round 5: Harry Wilson (Queensland Country No.8)
