Alex Newsome

Before Alex Newsome was a rugby player he was a horseman. He grew up on his parents’ farm at Glen Innes, in the New England country of northern New South Wales, and competed in campdrafting and bronc riding. Rugby, both codes, was the winter thing.

Note on his current club: Newsome is still listed in Clermont‘s squad data. After four seasons in the Auvergne he was not retained, and joined Oyonnax in Pro D2 for 2026-27.

He is 1.89m and 93kg and has played across the back line: full-back most often, wing before that, centre for the Waratahs. That versatility is why he was always picked and why he was never certain of one shirt.

He boarded at Saint Joseph’s College at Hunters Hill in Sydney, then played for Eastern Suburbs in the Shute Shield and for the Waratahs Under-20s. The NSW Country Eagles picked him for the 2016 National Rugby Championship, where he debuted against Brisbane City on 27 August, played eight games, scored three tries and reached the final.

The Western Force took him into their wider squad for 2017, liked what they saw in pre-season and gave him a professional deal. He played thirteen Super Rugby games on the wing and scored five tries. Then the Force were cut from the competition and he had to move.

He went back to Sydney. Five seasons with the Waratahs, mostly on the wing at first, increasingly at centre from 2020, and vice-captain from that season on — he captained the side for the first time in July 2021.

A two-year deal at Clermont followed in 2022, and he took the full-back shirt in his first Top 14 season ahead of Cheikh Tiberghien.

He never played a senior Test for Australia. The Under-20s in 2015, the Oceania championship and two matches at the junior world championship in Italy, and that was the extent of it.

A reliable, unspectacular back three player with a good boot and a safe pair of hands under it.