{"id":24044,"date":"2026-02-21T07:41:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/waratahs-coach-mckellar-determined-to-keep-jorgensen-fit-for-super-rugby-challenge\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:48","slug":"waratahs-coach-mckellar-determined-to-keep-jorgensen-fit-for-super-rugby-challenge","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/waratahs-coach-mckellar-determined-to-keep-jorgensen-fit-for-super-rugby-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Waratahs coach McKellar determined to keep Jorgensen fit for Super Rugby challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New South Wales Waratahs coach Dan McKellar will seek to manage Max Jorgensen&#8217;s preprations to ensure the Wallabies winger is available for as much of the Super Rugby season as possible after another two-try display by the 21-year-old on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Jorgensen followed up his brace of tries in his side&#8217;s season-opening win over the Queensland Reds last week with another pair in the 36-13 victory over the Fijian Drua in Sydney as the Waratahs notched up back-to-back successes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We didn&#8217;t have him for long last season and when you lose players like that it really hurts,&#8221; said McKellar.<br \/>\n&#8220;I think the challenge is for us to make sure we get his program right with his (strength and conditioning) work and his training load so that he gets through a full Super Rugby season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He comes up with match-changing moments. That&#8217;s the pleasing thing at the moment, is we&#8217;re keeping him on the field.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jorgensen played six times in the 2025 Super Rugby campaign prior to sustaining an ankle injury that cut his season short.<\/p>\n<p>He recovered to feature for Australia in their narrow 2-1 series loss against the British and Irish Lions in July and has since signed a five-year deal with the Waratahs to fend off interest from National Rugby League clubs.<\/p>\n<p>Jorgensen scored the pick of the Waratahs&#8217; tries against the Drua when, in the 37th minute, he used his foot speed and a swivel of his hips to bewilder the visitors and score in the corner, establishing a lead his side would not relinquish.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You just shake your head,&#8221; McKellar said of Jorgensen&#8217;s defence-beating move. &#8220;He&#8217;s beaten him in a phone booth. There&#8217;s not many players who can score that try on the planet. It&#8217;s a great moment. He&#8217;s building a highlights reel quickly.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought he did a lot of other things well. His work on our contestable kicking game helped win us the ball back and it&#8217;s something we&#8217;ve spoken about, it was much better from him tonight.<br \/>\n&#8220;And then he finished one off at the end there. He&#8217;s off to a good start.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":24045,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-24044","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Jorgensen played six times in the 2025 Super Rugby campaign.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Jorgensen played six times in the 2025 Super Rugby campaign.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/24044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/24044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26848,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/24044\/revisions\/26848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=24044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}