Rabbitohs Kick Off Victorian Partnership for 2025
The South Sydney Rabbitohs have kicked off their partnership with the Victorian-based Iron Armour Academy for season 2025, with players, coaches and staff visiting both organisations in the early weeks of the year.
Rabbitohs Head of Pathways, David Furner, visited the Iron Armour Academy in Melbourne in January, taking the players, coaches and staff through a training session and a presentation about what it takes to make it to the higher levels of the game.
The ground-breaking partnership between the oldest club in Rugby League in Australia and the long-established Melbourne-based academy, is unique, with players, coaches and staff from Iron Armour coming to Maroubra to check out the USANA Rabbitohs Centre in February.
The mantra of the Iron Armour Academy is ‘Iron Sharpens Iron’, and Mr Furner is excited about the prospects of the academy partnership which have grown since inception last year.
“We have kick started the partnership between the South Sydney Rabbitohs and Iron Armour that we’ve put together, and we’re announcing the first academy from the partnership for 2025,” Mr Furner said.
Rabbitohs Head of Pathways, David Furner“We had a really good session in Melbourne and we’ve enjoyed hosting the Iron Armour crew in Sydney as well. There’s a lot of talent at the Academy and we’re really excited about what the partnership has produced to date. The partnership has been there for 12 months and we’re looking at building on that. We’re looking to build for the future to help the players become first graders.”
“Going forward, I’m very excited about our partnership with Iron Armour, as well as our partnerships with the Townsville Blackhawks, Keebra Park State High School in south-east Queensland, and of course Souths Juniors.
“We look forward to all of our partnerships working together to showcase the talent we’ve got.”
Iron Armour Academy Co-founder, Marcell Putaura, is very happy with the partnership so far.
“We have launched our South Sydney Rabbitohs partnership for 2025. The purpose of the partnership is to open up opportunities to our athletes here in Melbourne,” Mr Putaura said.
“The goal for the partnership is for Iron Armour to continue to develop our staff, our coaches and our athletes, and to showcase the talent that we have here in Melbourne.
“We had a few NRL clubs that we were in talks with, and we felt that South Sydney recognised the work that Iron Armour has put in in the Victorian community over the last 12 years, and our values aligned with what we are both trying to achieve.
“They are also giving our Academy the opportunity to develop our coaches and our staff, to be able to deliver quality programs.
“We want to thank the South Sydney Rabbitohs for the opportunity to be a partner and want to thank them for coming down and putting the time and effort into developing our coaches and our athletes and we look forward to this ongoing working relationship.”
