Waratahs 'management plan' to keep match-winner Max Jorgensen on the field

Magnificent Max Jorgensen is pledging to only get better as the NSW Waratahs plot to keep their game breaker on the field for the entire Super Rugby Pacific season.

Jorgensen is already among the form players in the competition, crossing for four tries – including two electrifying solo efforts – in the opening two games to pilot the Waratahs to the top of the ladder with successive bonus-point wins.

After being sidelined for 10 games last year with ankle syndesmosis, it was no great coincidence the Tahs slipped from comfortably inside the top four to miss the finals.

Super Rugby Promo 2026 | RP

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Hence why coach Dan McKellar has prioritised the brilliant winger’s health and fitness in 2026.

“We didn’t have him for long last season and when you lose players like that, it really hurts,” McKellar said ahead of the Waratahs’ bye week.

“That’s the challenge for us, to make sure we get his program right with his S and C (strength and conditioning) work and his training load, so that he gets through a full Super Rugby season.

“Because if you’ve got him, he comes up with match-changing moments.

“So, yeah, that’s the pleasing thing at the moment – we’re keeping him on the field.”

The 21-year-old insists he hasn’t done “nothing too crazy different” to prepare for this season.

“Like I’ve been doing a lot of work with Tom Carter and Ed Hollis at the Tahs. That’s our head physio and head S & C, so they’ve got a great program going and we’re really just sort of managing me in a way that I can perform at my best every week,” Jorgensen said.

“And trying to get the body right and feeling good for pretty much every game every week.

“So they’ve done a tremendous job and I have full trust in them and how they prepare me each week.”

McKellar marvelled about how Jorgensen “beat (defender Taniela Rakuro) in a phone booth” to score his first try in Friday night’s 36-13 win over the Fijian Drua.

That try came after he burnt Jock Campbell and raced 60 metres for another breathtaking five-pointer against Queensland in round one.

Jorgensen, though, is only promising to take his game to even higher levels, believing he can improve in “every” department.

“I’m still a young player. I’m still learning so much from not only coaches, but other players, some of the older boys,” he said, just three weeks after resigning with Rugby Australia for five more years and resisting advances from the Sydney Roosters.

“There’s no part of my game I’m perfect at, so I think it’s just chipping away at little things here and there and trying to get better each week and each day.

“Not only off on the field but off the field as well, just trying to become a better human as well and to have all these boys alongside me, it’s helping so much that we’re such a close group and we actually love each other in the Tahs.

“It’s a pleasure to be able to go into the Waratahs training facility every day and and hang out with my brothers.”