BATHURST rugby league talent Jack Siejka might be in his first season with the Newtown Jets, but already the second rower is being touted as a “pin-up boy” for the club.
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After playing for the Sydney Roosters in the Holden Cup competition last season and falling one win short of a grand final appearance, the second-rower has advanced to open-age competition.
Siejka has been contracted by the Roosters, the officials of the Bondi club keen to see how he handles himself in the NSW Cup with feeder outfit the Jets as he continues to develop physically.
So far they would like what they have seen.
“Jack is having a very good season for us so far,” Newtown director and media officer Glen Dwyer said.
“I’d say at the moment he is a work in progress for the Roosters. He still has to get a bit bigger physically, I’d say, before he is up to that level of players in the NRL.
“But the very fact he’s in their full squad and they chose to keep him after he came out of NSW Cup is an indication they have future hopes for him.”
The Jets are Australia’s oldest rugby league club and, as such, have a proud tradition in the sport.
However, they have had a tough start to their new campaign.
While teams such as Mounties, who defeated the Jets 38-16 in round three, have players with NRL experience among their ranks, season 2014 is a development one for Siejka’s new club.
“We have a larger number of graduates from the under 20s than what we normally would have this season,” Dwyer said.
“Sometimes boys coming up from under 20s take a little bit longer to come to terms with playing in an open competition.
“But Jack, he’s what our coach Greg Matterson describes as a coach’s template. He is highly professional, he gets to training early, he wants to do extra work, he does everything that is asked of him.
“We lost our first three games, but in two of those Jack was man of the match for us for the work he does. He makes a lot of tackles and he takes the ball up when others don’t want to work.”
Siejka scored his first try for his new club on March 29 against the Illawarra Cutters, winning the chase to an in-goal kick by Arana Taumata. However, that match resulted in a 24-14 loss.
Newtown came close with a 14-all draw against the Bulldogs to start the month, then finally prevailed in their round six match on Saturday.
Siejka picked up his first win in Newtown colours as the Jets downed Wentworthville 30-22 at Henson Park.
It was a match in which Siejka’s work inspired his fellow forwards to their best performance of the season thus far.
“He’s just a workhorse. He does a lot of tackling, but he is also the first bloke to put his hand up to bring the ball out of our end,” Dwyer said.
“He’s been doing that when the bigger guys, the props, should have been doing that. But on the weekend those guys stepped up and by doing that, that will allow Jack to do what he is best at and shine on the edges.
“He just puts his body on the line and the fans pick up on that pretty quickly. He looks like he has survived some sort of battle in the American Civil War with the headband he wears.
“He really is a pin-up boy. His attitude is first class and he has been such a positive for us.”
Siejka will be hoping he can continue to impress and that the confidence he and his team-mates gained from Saturday’s win will lead to more success.