Quirindi High School student Ronin Hadden has had his potential underlined after being named in the North Sydney Bears’ SG Ball Cup summer squad.
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The Bears are a South Sydney Rabbitohs feeder club.
Hadden recently attended open trials for the summer squad at Ryde in Sydney, and a week later the club invited him to an invitational trial.
“Both times they put us into teams,” the Year 11 student said. “We played a match, they reviewed the video footage and selections were made from there.”
Hadden said his family was very excited.
“The first week of the [recent] school holidays, a Tuesday, Dad texted me at 1.30 in the morning to say I had made the squad. He was so excited and he then he called me at 6.00am. It was terrific,” the teen said.
Hadden is focused on improving his fitness and will head to Sydney on October 26 for gym testing and orientation at the famed club.
“Mr Chambers and Miss Saunders and Mr Clark from the Quirindi High School have all been great supporters, and my school mates have congratulated me – but they are keeping me real,” he said.
“There are core values of the Quirindi High School Clontarf Academy, like respect and hard work and accountability, that are also keeping me real.”
Hadden is obviously looking forward to orientation day and finding out more about what lies ahead for him.
“I don’t really know yet what happens next. [I’ll] find out at the orientation,” he said.
Despite his sporting prowess, Hadden said he would continue to work hard at school to ensure he had something to fall back on in life if needed.
“I’m a Melbourne Storm supporter and I guess now I’ll be changing to a Rabbitohs [supporter],” he added.
Hadden first pulled on his footy boots at the age of six for the Quirindi Grasshoppers.
“I just loved the sport of league right from word go. I knew it was what I wanted to do,” he said.
At the start of under-10s, he headed to Werris Creek to play after his Quirindi coach, Geoff Hall, went there.
“Geoff was always good a tacking drills and fitness, things that have stuck with me the whole way through and things that I credit him with teaching me,” Hadden said
For the past three years, Hadden has played for the Scone Thoroughbreds.
“Mum and Dad have done a lot of driving, including to different regional areas over the many years of my sport, and I really appreciate everything my family has done for me,” he said.
Hadden’s older sister, Tilly, is one of his biggest supporters.
