Four years after realising his dream of playing Super Rugby, Alex Newsome will celebrate another milestone moment in his career and join some of the luminaries of the game at GIO Stadium on Saturday night.
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The Glen Innes product will captain the Waratahs against the Brumbies after being appointed to take over from the injured Jake Gordon. Gordon is set to miss up to eight weeks after suffering a syndesmosis injury in their season-opening loss to the Reds.
Considered by many the logical successor, "Nobby" as he is affectionately known in rugby circles, said when Gordon and coach Rob Penney informed him they would like him to fill in as captain it was "a pretty proud moment" and "something that I'm pretty excited about".
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"My Super Rugby debut is something I'll always remember and this is right up there with that," he said.
"You look at some of the names that have captained the Waratahs over the years and there's some genuine legends of Australian rugby there so it is an honour to lead the side, albeit while Jake's out."
The first time he has carried the 'c' after his name, Newsome is looking to lead with his actions, and spoke about keeping it "pretty simple" and doing his job "first and foremost"
"You look at the guys who have preceded me like Michael Hooper, he was our best player every week; he just used to perform really well, and I thought Jake was probably our best player last week before he got injured as well," he said.
He added: "I said to the boys at the start of the week when Rob announced the team that I'm just going to be focused on performing the best I can for the team and I expect everyone else to do the same."
Newsome's family will be there in the stands on Saturday night after making the drive from Glen Innes. He said telling them the news was "pretty cool".
"They didn't give me too much, just said they were proud of me," he said.
With new recruit Izaia Perese rubbed out for three weeks, the 26-year old will also shift into outside centre for what will be a big test of the Waratahs credentials with the Brumbies impressive in beating the Force.
In contrast suffering a record loss to the Reds, Newsome said they had this week really focused on cleaning up "a few errors".
"We know they play a pretty simple game but do it well so for us we've just sort of focused on tidying up a few issues from last week," he said. "We want to play more direct; we thought we just got a bit loose in areas of the game."
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