Watch every second of Super Rugby Pacific live and on-demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nInstead, McKellar has backed the uncapped Randwick flyer after a breakout Super Rugby AUS campaign that saw the Joeys product guide the Waratahs to the title.<\/p>\n
This included a remarkable performance against the Reds, which included a four-try haul for the win.<\/p>\n
On that night, he had three line break assists and ran for over 160 metres, with the standout being a runaway try where he outpaced Reds flyer Tim Ryan for his hat-trick.<\/p>\n
He set up two tries in the Final victory over the Western Force, leaving McKellar to back him to step up to the next level.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s been in our pathway for a number of years and trained with us full-time last year, performed well for Randwick and got an opportunity in the Super AUS competition and took it and he’s backed it up with a really good pre-season,” McKellar said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve got plenty of quality and depth that can play at 15, so he’s done well to earn the first opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendren has had a disrupted stint at the Waratahs during his stint, including a broken wrist towards the end of last season’s Super Rugby Pacific campaign.<\/p>\n
He told Rugby.com.au of his desire to crack into the hotly contested backline during pre-season, getting the chance to debut at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always had that belief, but I think confidence is a bit separate, based on what you actually do, so I think my confidence went up massively from being able to show more what I can do and what I’m trying to do,\u201d he said in November. \u201cIt laid a pretty good platform for something for me to build on, and it was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n
\u201c…I think you just have to, as clich\u00e9 as it is, you do have to be a bit of a sponge and just wait for opportunity,\u201d Hendren remarked when asked about competing with these guys. Kellaway’s played all around the world, and his experience is pretty unmatched. Jorgo’s a young guy coming through, and his confidence is something that I sort of try to learn from and then Su’s just the ultimate professional.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou try and pick apart, especially their game, how you can put them in your own, but in this environment, they’re easy to talk to and open for a chat whenever.\u201d<\/p>\n
The decision sees Kellaway miss out altogether, while Suaalii moves into the midfield, where he plays at Test level.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just needs to keep working hard,” McKellar said on Kellaway
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe boys that came back from Wallabies camp had a long and challenging 2025 and \u2018Kells\u2019 is a quality player that will play plenty of Super Rugby in 2026.
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just thought an extra week of extra training and metres in the legs would be good for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
WARATAHS (1-15): Tom Lambert, Ethan Dobbins, Dan Botha, Matt Philip (c), Miles Amatosero, Clem Halaholo, Charlie Gamble, Pete Samu, Jake Gordon, Lawson Creighton, Max Jorgensen, Joey Walton, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, Harry Potter, James Hendren<\/p>\n
Replacements: Folau Fainga’a, Isaac Kailea, Siosifa Amone, Angus Blyth, Leafi Talataina, Teddy Wilson, Jake Debreczeni, Triston Reilly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NSW Waratahs coach Dan McKellar believes 23-year-old debutant James Hendren has earned the right to start in Friday’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,32951,760,85,48013],"class_list":["post-472249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nsw-waratahs","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472249","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=472249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}