{"id":199774,"date":"2025-10-09T07:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T07:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/199774\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T07:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T07:06:08","slug":"george-smiths-son-ryker-queensland-reds-under-16s-selection-for-nsw-waratahs-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/199774\/","title":{"rendered":"George Smith’s son Ryker, Queensland Reds under-16s selection for NSW Waratahs clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The son of Wallabies legend George Smith<\/a> is starting to make waves with his own rugby career.<\/p>\n

Ryker Smith has been selected at No.8 for the Queensland Reds<\/a> under-16s to play against the NSW Waratahs in Sydney on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Smith earned his first taste at junior Super Rugby level with time off the bench in Friday’s 69-6 romp against Victoria at Ballymore.<\/p>\n

Watch Wallabies vs Japan and the 2025 Autumn Nations Series with every match streaming live and on demand on the home of rugby, Stan Sport<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Backrower<\/p>\n

Backrower Ryker Smith in action during the Emerging Reds Cup.\u00a0Queensland Rugby<\/p>\n

He dished one neat offload out wide for a Mitch Durrheim try but is also noted for his strong ball carries.<\/p>\n

He attends St Andrew’s Anglican College at Peregian Springs and is making his mark through the Noosa Dolphins on the Sunshine Coast.<\/p>\n

“Ryker is quite physical and a strong ball carrier. We thought he had a really good impact off the bench and hopefully we’ll see more of that on Saturday,” Reds under-16s coach Welmar Du Plessis said.<\/p>\n

LIVE UPDATES: AFL trade period day four<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"George<\/p>\n

George Smith of the Wallabies drives forward during the 2003 Rugby World Cup final.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“He was definitely one of the best backrowers at the recent Emerging Reds Cup.<\/p>\n

“We have to front up in defence because we know how dangerous NSW are on attack, especially out wide. That has to be a real accent as well as starting well to apply some scoreboard pressure.”<\/p>\n

The match at Forshaw Park kicks off at 2.10pm AEDT and will be streamed live on Stan Sport.<\/p>\n

NEW PODCAST! Nick Phipps joins Sean Maloney and Morgan Turinui for a review of Australia’s Rugby Championship campaign<\/p>\n

The Waratahs are coming off dominant 97-0 and 96-7 wins over the ACT Brumbies and Western Force respectively.<\/p>\n

“The first two rounds have shown the boys’ commitment to their systems and structure, even when the scoreboard’s in our favour,” Waratahs coach Matthew Evrard said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve made a few changes this week to reward players who’ve been pushing hard at training. It’s about keeping that internal competition strong while staying true to how we want to play.<\/p>\n

“Our ruck speed and accuracy have been real standouts so far, and that allows our attack to flourish across the park.<\/p>\n

“It’s great to see tries being shared between forwards and backs.<\/p>\n

“It shows balance in how we’re building pressure and finishing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The son of Wallabies legend George Smith is starting to make waves with his own rugby career. Ryker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-199774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199774","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=199774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}