{"id":604992,"date":"2026-09-19T05:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/604992\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T05:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T05:18:15","slug":"jack-waugh-son-of-rugby-australia-ceo-phil-waugh-dies-aged-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/604992\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Waugh, son of Rugby Australia CEO Phil Waugh, dies aged 21"},"content":{"rendered":"

Code Sports and the Sydney Morning Herald are reporting that Jack died of an accidental overdose.<\/p>\n

\"JackJack Waugh (left) with his dad Phil and brother Charlie. Photo \/ @charliewaughhh<\/p>\n

His younger brother Charlie posted a tribute on social media this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo my big brother. I love you more than words could ever explain,\u201d Charlie wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou helped me grow into the person I am today, always looked out for me and protected me when I needed it most. I\u2019ll carry everything you taught me for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you\u2019ll be looking over me from wherever you are, and I know you\u2019ll always be rooting for me. I hope I can make you proud.<\/p>\n

\u201cRest easy Jack, I love you, always and forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born prematurely, Jack spent the first three months of his life in intensive care, with his father becoming an advocate for the Miracle Babies Foundation, a charity supporting families of premature and sick newborns.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Jack was born] 1040 grams, and then, as we know, all babies lose weight after birth so he went down to 970 grams at his lowest,\u201d Phil said in a 2019 interview with 2GB.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo quite confronting when you have hopes of a healthy newborn, and they come 13 weeks early.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd at that weight, it\u2019s quite terrifying for any parent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in intensive care for 12 weeks, and obviously you just don\u2019t know what the outcome\u2019s going to be.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut also not just the short-term outcome but also the long-term effects.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we\u2019ve been particularly lucky with our son Jack, and he\u2019s got no issues today but certainly others aren\u2019t as lucky as what we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former Waratahs and Wallabies flanker has two other children from a second marriage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Code Sports and the Sydney Morning Herald are reporting that Jack died of an accidental overdose. Jack Waugh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[652,18919,85,3500,3937,6179,7126,3938,3218,22259,111,139,69,1118,9716,21037,6327,22639,213,34432,298168,1530],"class_list":["post-604992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-652","tag-aged","tag-australia","tag-ceo","tag-chief","tag-died","tag-dies","tag-executive","tag-icon","tag-jack","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-old","tag-phil","tag-rugby","tag-son","tag-sports","tag-wallabies","tag-waugh","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}