{"id":137012,"date":"2025-09-12T06:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/137012\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T06:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T06:05:11","slug":"six-things-you-never-knew-about-canberras-no-6-ethan-strange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/137012\/","title":{"rendered":"Six things you never knew about Canberra\u2019s No. 6 Ethan Strange"},"content":{"rendered":"

International flavour<\/p>\n

New Zealand Rugby League officials sounded out Strange about representing the Kiwis in last year\u2019s Pacific Championships.<\/p>\n

\"Ethan<\/p>\n

Ethan Strange claimed man-of-the-match honours in the Blues under 19s Origin win in 2023.Credit: NRL Photos<\/p>\n

That same grandfather who lived in Norway married an English woman before moving to New Zealand. Strange even has Maori heritage.<\/p>\n

His older sister, Sydney Roosters\u2019 NRLW player Jasmin Strange<\/a>, has already represented the Maori All Stars, and spoken about her hopes of representing England. Their mother, Adele, was born and raised in Yorkshire.<\/p>\n

Canberra coach Ricky Stuart recently spoke about Strange being ready to be taken on the Ashes tour for Australia. The young man himself has not given it much thought, and only spoke about his hopes of playing Origin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you I love NSW,\u201d Strange said.<\/p>\n

Wanted man<\/p>\n

Strange grew up on the NSW Central Coast in the semi-rural suburb of Tumbi Umbi, and played in the same Central Coast Roosters Harold Matthews team as current Bondi boys Rob Toia, Blake Steep and hooker Benaiah Ioelu. They reached the finals in 2021.<\/p>\n

When recruitment guru Peter Mulholland sent footage of Strange to Stuart, the coach wasted no time arranging a meeting.<\/p>\n

Stuart liked Strange. Strange liked Stuart more. Half a dozen other clubs were interested, and Strange formally met two others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met with the Roosters, and chatted with the Gold Coast,\u201d Strange said. \u201cJustin Holbrook is one of my dad\u2019s best mates and was coaching them at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut as soon as I came down here and met with \u2018Stick\u2019 [Stuart], this was the place I wanted to move to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stuart picked up the phone to John Strange, who stayed out of the early meetings because he was the NRLW coach at the Roosters, and everything he predicted would happen to Ethan has since come true.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s backed Ethan from the start, he put him in the vacant No.6 spot in round one last year, and all Ethan wants to do now is repay Ricky,\u201d John said.<\/p>\n

Ricky roommates<\/p>\n

When Strange agreed to come to the nation\u2019s capital, Stuart offered to put him up in his family home.<\/p>\n

But a fear of being too messy or unorganised led Strange to politely passing on the coach and moving in with Tom Starling, the Raiders hooker who also grew up on the Central Coast.<\/p>\n

Adele made the regular trip to Canberra to make sure her son was coping \u2013 and eating his greens.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a bit nervous about moving in with \u2018Stick\u2019, and because I had no idea how to look after myself, and I was worried he\u2019d sack me after my first week,\u201d Strange said.<\/p>\n

Hidden talents<\/p>\n

Strange grew up on acreage, the property featured a motocross track, skate ramp and modified football field, complete with floodlights, which John would use to train junior teams whenever the local grounds were closed because of wet weather.<\/p>\n

\"Ethan<\/p>\n

Ethan Strange showing of his skateboarding skills at Bondi Beach<\/p>\n

When he was 12 or 13, Strange taught himself to ride a unicycle. One of the local teachers loved the circus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d learn to ride unicycles at recess, then play footy at lunch,\u201d Strange said.<\/p>\n

John added: \u201cAfter he taught himself to ride the unicycle, he rode it all the way around the motocross track, basically because he wanted to. That\u2019s who he is. He was also an excellent skateboarder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strange also loved surfing, and attended the same high school as our latest world surfing champion, Molly Picklum.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a few mates whose claim to fame was they took on Molly in some North Shelly Beach surfing heats, only to get pumped by her,\u201d Ethan said.<\/p>\n

Jack Wighton 2.0<\/p>\n

Hudson Young defended outside Wighton, and never imagined his replacement would be so similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way Jack used to back himself in defence, Ethan does the same thing,\u201d Young said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to protect him or look after him. Most young halves who come on the scene, as a backrower, you need to look after them [in defence] so they can then go on the attack. But Ethan\u2019s attack comes off the back of his defence. He\u2019s so strong, fast and powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family greatness<\/p>\n

What is not a well-kept secret is how Strange\u2019s father and older sister are at the Roosters, and already premiership winners.<\/p>\n

The Chooks won the title last year, and made it 11 wins from as many games on Thursday night. There is a huge chance all three Strange family members will be there on grand final day.<\/p>\n

\"John,<\/p>\n

John, Jasmin and Ethan Strange.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve both won premierships, it would be cool if we\u2019re all there on grand final day, and that\u2019s basically the plan,\u201d Strange said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to win one. And we can win it. We just think, \u2018why not?\u2019. We\u2019re a good footy team. We know what we\u2019ve got here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"International flavour New Zealand Rugby League officials sounded out Strange about representing the Kiwis in last year\u2019s Pacific…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-137012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}