Tom Robertson is a proud Dubbo boy – you could argue he first learnt to crouch, touch, pause, engage on Wheelers Lane while he attended St Mary’s.
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But such is the prop's connection with regional NSW as a whole the 22-year-old Roos junior feels at home just about anywhere west of the great divide.
The entire Robertson clan is the same, too.
“It’ll be great to get home,” Robertson said looking forward to next month’s Super Rugby trial at Mudgee’s Glen Willow.
“My relatives from Dubbo have got all the accommodation booked out at one of the local pubs in Mudgee. So it’ll be good to catch up – it’s pretty hard to do that sometimes.”
Aside from the Robertson invasion, Mudgee will be bombarded with NSW Waratahs fans from far and wide when the sky blues take on Super Rugby rivals the ACT Brumbies on Saturday, February 4.
It’ll be great to get home.
- NSW Waratahs prop Tom Robertson
The clash will be NSW’s first hit-out of the 2017 pre-season, while the Brumbies have a trial with the Australian Barbarians headed into the February fixture.
After the Tahs missed the 2016 finals, Robertson said his side was eyeing off the match as a means of sending an early message to the rest of the Super Rugby competition.
“We love beating (the Brumbies). Hopefully we can put one on them in Mudgee,” Robertson said.
“We were only a couple of points off the Brumbies at the top of the conference.
“That’s another big factor going into this trial, sort of put our stamp on 2017 against the team that beat us to the finals.”
And there would be no sweeter way to do than on home soil, not for country boys like Neg Hanigan (Dubbo), Brad Wilkin (Yeoval) and Matt Sandell (Mudgee).
“A quarter of our squad is from country NSW,” Robertson said.
“I guess I’d love to see most of my family out there and it’d be great for a lot of the other country boys to get the same reception.
“We’d love to pack it out. It’d be great to see a full house. That’d be awesome.”
The Waratahs take on the Brumbies at Glen Willow on February 4.