'Welcome to the Roosters': The brutal introduction that got Dom back on track

As part of pan66.com's 'Hisense Upgrade Season' series, we talk to England international Dom Young about his move to Newcastle as a teenager and his decision to join Sydney Roosters.

"Welcome to the Roosters!"

Dom Young had just returned to Sydney after being released from hospital in England when he was thrust into a brutal pre-season army camp with his new Sydney Roosters team-mates.

As one of the fastest players in the NRL, Young was conditioned for the running, but he noticed the six kilograms he’d lost when the players were forced to carry an army stretcher from Allianz Stadium to Centennial Park and back.

Then there was swimming, more running and a sleepless night spent at Randwick Army Barracks.

It wasn’t the introduction to his new club that the 22-year-old wing sensation expected as he was still recovering from a virus that resulted in him spending two weeks in a hospital ward and missing England’s series against Tonga.

“They said to me, ‘we’re not going to throw you straight in, we will just ease you in, it will be good for you to meet some of the boys and connect’,” Young recalled during an interview about his rise for the Hisense Upgrade Season series.

“Then as soon as that whistle blew, I just did everything. It was horrible, it was torture, I was struggling. That definitely was some welcome. It was like, ‘welcome to the Roosters’.”

Young, who is set to be one of the stars of the NRL finals series after helping the Roosters to a top four berth, had agreed to join the club after three seasons at the Knights.

However, his future seemed uncertain as he spent weeks in a crowded hospital ward in Leeds.

A sinus infection he had developed before flying to England for the series against Tonga spread to his brain while staying with his parents before the team entered camp.

“I basically had this abscess on the lining of my brain that was causing a lot of pressure,” Young said. “It was just like the worst kind of head pain you could imagine.

“I was just fully weak. When I went to hospital, I could barely move. I was pretty much like a zombie, and for a few weeks I was on the strongest antibiotics system in the ward.

As an athlete, you think you are healthy, you don’t think that kind of thing is going to happen to you. It was pretty scary.

“It was a day or two before camp. At first I didn't think anything of it, but then it got to a point where I just couldn't get out of bed. My head was banging, and I was shaking with fever; I was cold, I was hot, and then I just couldn’t open my eyes.

“I was in a ward with quite a few other sick people, so you wake up and you are kind of looking at a full room - there was no privacy or anything.

“I had five or six people in the room with me and my parents could only visit me for an hour or two hours each day, so it was rough.

“I lost quite a bit of weight, and I just felt a lot weaker within myself as well because I wasn’t eating anything.

“Even when I got out of hospital, I wasn't really allowed to lift weights or do any strenuous exercise because it wasn’t safe for me with all the antibiotics I was taking. They were pretty strong doses.”

"I didn't end up playing any games and I missed the whole camp, so I wanted to get back and get into the swing of things."

Point to prove

Despite the setback to his start with the Roosters, Young has scored 19 tries in 19 matches this season to maintain the strike rate of a try per game he set with Newcastle last season.

Yet when Knights coach Adam O’Brien convinced the English teen, whose talents had also been identified by dual code great Jason Robinson, to become the first player of Jamaican heritage in the NRL, there were sceptics on both sides of the globe.

Young starred for England Under 16s against France in 2017 and made his Super League debut as a 17-year-old, but he had played just two matches for Huddersfield before moving to Newcastle in 2021 amid COVID travel restrictions.

“The NRL wasn’t on my radar but when I got a few offers I started considering it seriously and I was watching it, so I just thought I'd take a leap of faith,” he said.

“It was just a hard decision to make at that age. I'd never been away from my parents for an extended period of time or anything like that, so it was daunting for the first few weeks, and I did struggle a bit.

“When I spoke seriously with Mum and Dad, they just said, ‘you’re going to regret it if you turn it down’. My brother [Alex] said you have to go and that made it a lot easier because everyone around me was just pushing me.

“It also made me want to make them proud because obviously they want me to do that, and it's one thing going but you actually want to be successful at it as well.

When I first moved over, I had a lot of people writing me off and saying, ‘he'll be back early’.

“I wanted to prove a point to myself and to make sure that the sacrifices were worth it. At the end of the day, I sacrificed quite a bit to come here.”

Poster boy

NRL Hall of Famer Greg Inglis was among the players Young looked up in his youth but the player he modelled his game on was former Kiwis, Raiders and Bradford superstar Lesley Vainikolo.

"I was a big Bradford Bulls fan and I used to love watching Lesley Vainikolo," he said.

"They called him 'The Volcano'. He was just a beast, and he had the big hair, so I used to resonate with that.

"I was lucky enough at Huddersfield that we had Jermaine McGillvary, he was a quality player who played at the [2017] World Cup, so I learned a lot of him."

Young's rise was so rapid that he played in McGillvary's England wing spot at the last World Cup in 2022 and became a poster boy for tournament organisers because of his try scoring feats and good looks. 

In five Tests, Young scored nine tries but he was largely unknown before the World Cup - not only to English fans but media.

"I hadn’t played a lot of Super League, so I think English fans didn’t really know a whole heap about me, which is weird, because usually you're not going to get an opportunity here unless you’ve kind of proven yourself in England," he said.

“When I was playing for England in that first game, I kind of felt like I needed to prove to the fans what I’m about to get them on side because they hadn't seen me.

"One of the coolest moments for me during that World Cup was when I finally felt the recognition from all my people around me that I’ve always cared about back home, watching me and supporting me. It was the first time I've really had that.

“It was the first time my grandparents had been to the games, all my extended family were there watching and even my mum and dad's friends were watching and asking them about me.

"I think that was probably one of their proudest moments too."

Turning down a legend

Young’s paternal grandparents are Jamaican and among the things he misses the most in Australia is the Caribbean food that is far more available in his hometown of Wakefield and across England.

“I would always go to my grandma's house, and she'd cook Jamaican food,” Young said. “Most people know jerk chicken, but my favourite dish is goat curry. There is a lot of flavourful food, and you are definitely not lacking in the spices, but I love it.

I've definitely been proud to fly the Jamaican flag when I got more of a profile.

"There’s not a lot of boys with my background in the NRL so I’ve always been proud of it.”

Until his surprise England call up for the World Cup, Young was set to play alongside brother Alex for Jamaica after a personal approach from Jason Robinson.

A great of rugby league and union, Robinson played 270 matches for Wigan from 1992 to 2000 - when they were arguably the best team in the world - and 19 Tests for Great Britain and England before switching codes.

Through his involvement with the Jamaica team, Robinson visited Young family their home in a bid to convince Dom and Alex to play for the Reggae Warriors. 

“He is not just a legend of the sport, he is a legend of sport – full stop,” Young said.

As a young kid growing up, to see a black man like Jason Robinson kill it on and off the field, he was someone I looked up to, so for him to come to my house and say he was an admirer of mine was pretty cool.

“I used to watch his highlights and had heard all about him so when he was trying to get me to commit for Jamaica it definitely made that decision [to play for England] a bit harder.

“I've bumped into him a couple of times since, and it’s still all good with him. I saw him at the World Cup, and he just said, ‘well done, you’re killing it’.”

Brothers in arms

With 21-year-old Warrington forward Matty Nicholson joining Morgan Smithies (23), in Canberra next season, and Will Pryce (21) and Kai Pearce-Paul (23) at the Knights, Young has become a trailblazer for young English players in the NRL.

He even helped convince Pearce-Paul to make the move from Wigan to Newcastle, so it was a hard decision to leave the Knights.

“I was in Newcastle for a while, and I was probably ready for a change," he said. "I felt like I was at that point where I was ready for a new challenge and when I look back it's always paid off when I've taken that leap of faith.

“I thought it was it was a good chance to step up, and take another step in my career to do that."

While Dom didn’t get to play with Alex at the World Cup, his brother also joined him in Sydney and this season played lower grades for the Roosters and their feeder teams.

The arrival of Alex, who played 55 matches for Workington and Newcastle while completing a Master of Laws degree, has helped Young keep home sickness at bay.

Their parents have also made regular trips to Australia to watch the siblings play – including the Round 5 match against the Bulldogs when Dom was sent off for a high shot on Blake Taaffe.

“Alex has been someone I've always looked up too, being my older brother, as a kid I always kind of learned from what he'd done,” Young said.

“He has come through all the systems that I've been through, so it was easier on me following in his footsteps because he'd already done it.

“Me and him were always really close growing up, we would speak every day and after three seasons in Newcastle, I was settled but I had no family kind of figures permanently here, so it wasn’t ideal.

“Every time I’d go home, we'd get real close again and then I'd come back here, so it’s good just to have that stability from him. He always keeps me a check, he keeps me in line and even just going to training with him, is really cool.”