‘He didn’t work as hard as he could have’: Schoolboys sensation responds to pre-season challenge to make his mark at the Storm

It’s taken longer than most people would have expected, but Melbourne’s Jack Howarth is finally starting to realise his potential.

The former Australian Schoolboys star is earning high praise from coach Craig Bellamy, who says the young gun is reaping the rewards having taken the pre-season “more seriously” than ever before.

Plenty has been made about Howarth’s slower-than-expected progression after he signed a lucrative five-year deal worth a reported $500,000 per season, with niggling injuries forcing him to wait until the final round of 2023 to make his long-awaited debut.

Shoulder issues have hampered his development, with Howarth spending the bulk of the past four seasons playing for Sunshine Coast in the Queensland Cup while his Schoolboys teammates made a name for themselves in the NRL.

It’s been nearly five years since he started in the back row in an Australian Schoolboys side that featured Origin stars Reece Walsh and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow as well as Roosters halfback Sam Walker.

All three of them scored against New Zealand that day, as did Howarth, who was named man of the match in a star-studded side.

Howarth has taken longer than his former teammates to kick on but is set to play his fifth game in a row for the Storm on Saturday night.

“I think he took the pre-season a little bit more seriously. I think he was more invested,” Bellamy said.

“I don’t like to say this because it might not be right, but I will say it anyway – I think because of his Schoolboys footy, he was up on a pedestal because of his athleticism and his speed and his size.

“But perhaps he didn’t work as hard as he could have. I think this pre-season he realised that if I’m going to be playing first grade then I’m going to have to work a bit harder than what I am.

“If he works hard then that ability comes out more often on the field, and that’s what happened this year. There are still a few things he needs to work really hard on in a tactical sense, but you can see the damage he can do with the ball.

“If he keeps working hard then the world is his oyster.”

Howarth described the recent opportunities as “unreal”, with the edge forward happy to get a chance in the centres after it was initially put to him that he’d have to play prop given they’ve got established stars like Eliesa Katoa and Shawn Blore in the back row.

While he’s still so young, Howarth acknowledged that he had to change perceptions, and the only way to do that was to cancel summer holidays, focus on his diet and show Bellamy that he deserves a spot in the 17.

“I came out of school with a lot of expectations, but having back-to-back injuries during the pre-season meant I was on the back foot a lot. I don’t know if I coped with that very well,” he said.

“I was meant to have shoulder surgery but I didn’t get it because I wanted to come into the pre-season fit because I’ve gone into a lot of them with niggles from the previous year.

“This pre-season I was able to come in fit and get through it all, and Craig is really big on the idea that if you have a big pre-season then you’ll have a good year. He told me I had to take my opportunity when I got it, and that’s given me a lot of confidence.

“I wanted to make sure that I put my best foot forward and tried to impress Craig and change his perspective of me that I wasn’t just there to go through the motions.”

While he had to deal with the disappointment of not getting picked for most of 2023, Howarth has also had to cope with off-field innuendo about his attitude and potential conflicts with the coaching staff that he says simply weren’t true.

“I took it pretty well because I’ve got a really good support base, especially here at the club with the leadership group who assured me that they wanted me to be a part of the team,” he said.

“That helped me through that period where there were a lot of people questioning what was going on because there wasn’t much information released on why I wasn’t playing, so people started to make their own assumptions, which is easy to do.

“People at the club assured me that my time will come, and I’m just trying to nail my role and make this position mine.”