Junior Varage has potential to be rugby league star

By KEITH PUARIA
SEVENTEEN-year-old sole first recipient of The Adrian Lam Foundation scholarship, Junior Varage Wari, returns to Sydney tomorrow after spending his holidays with family in Port Moresby.
Junior, as he is known, was handpicked by Lam from the Papua New Guinea Schoolboys Rugby League Competition as a player with the potential to be a future star of the sport.
He lives with the Kumul coach and his family in Clovelly, Sydney.
He attends Matraville Sports High, where rugby league forms part of his weekly curriculum, and where he has focused on getting a good education.
Into the second year of his scholarship, Junior’s potential was noticed last year by the Sydney Roosters, which signed him for a three-year contract to play for its Under 18 side as part of the SG Ball competition.
“It’s been really great living and learning off Adrian Lam,” Junior said.
“Just living rugby league and focusing on my studies with his guidance is special, especially with my aspirations to represent PNG one day.
“It’s made me want to be better in my game, and myself as a person.”
His aspirations are not too far from being realised, with Lam singling him out in the Sydney media last year as having “all the right attributes that will make a very talented rugby league player”.
Lam said in an interview last year with ‘the Beast’, ‘a monthly magazine for Sydney’s beaches and bays of the east’ that Wari definitely had potential for bigger things.
“This is a massive opportunity for Junior and it is great that the Sydney Roosters have taken him on board to develop him as a complete player and to one day secure a contract in the NRL. He has a lot of work to do but he definitely has the potential,” Lam said.
Junior spent the week with his family and will return to Sydney, his mentor, his studies and his rugby league season.