Izack Rodda (born 20 August 1996) is an Australian professional

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

player. He currently plays for the

Western Force The Western Force is an Australian professional rugby union team based in Perth, Western Australia, currently competing in Super Rugby Pacific. They previously played in Super Rugby from 2006 until they were axed from the competition in 2017. ...

Super Rugby Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Building on various Southern Hem ...

. Rodda previously played for the

Queensland Reds The Queensland Reds is the rugby union team for the Australian state of Queensland that competes in the Southern Hemisphere's Super Rugby competition. Prior to 1996, they were a representative team selected from the rugby union club competition ...

and French

Top 14 The Top 14 () is a professional rugby union club competition that is played in France. Created in 1892, the Top 14 is at the top of the national league system operated by the French National Rugby League, also known by its French initialism o ...

team

Lyon OU Lyon Olympique Universitaire or LOU is a French rugby union team based in Lyon that currently competes in the Top 14, the highest level of the country's professional league system, having been most recently promoted for the 2016–17 season af ...

. He is capped for the Australian national team and played at the Rugby World Cup in 2019. His regular position is lock.

Family and early life

Izack Rodda was born in Lismore in Northern

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, around 40 kilometres north of his home town of

Evans Head Evans Head is a town in Richmond Valley Council of the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia. At the 2016 census, Evans Head had a population of 2,843 people. It is 726 kilometres north of Sydney, and 11 kilometres east off the ...

. He started playing junior rugby union on the Far North Coast for Lismore City Rugby Club. Rodda was selected for NSW Country junior teams, and also played some

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

in his early years as a lock forward or prop. The young Rodda switched his focus to playing rugby union at the age of thirteen, initially as a number eight but later at lock as he grew in stature. He attended Ipswich Grammar in

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

for his final two years of high school and was selected for the

Australian Schoolboys The Australian Schoolboys refer to junior teams that represent Australia in various sports. The name is mainly used in rugby league, rugby union and baseball. Other popular team sports in Australia such as cricket, basketball, association footbal ...

rugby team in 2014.

Rugby career

Rodda joined the

Easts Tigers The Brisbane Tigers are a rugby league club based at Langlands Park, in the suburb of Coorparoo in Brisbane, Australia. Since 1996, they have competed in the Queensland Cup, having competed in the Brisbane Rugby League from 1934 to 1997, where ...

club in Brisbane to play

Queensland Premier Rugby Queensland Premier Rugby is a semi professional club rugby union competition in Queensland, Australia. Nine clubs play in the competition, eight of which are from Brisbane with one club from the Gold Coast. The premiership has been contested ...

, and he represented the Queensland Under-20 team in 2015 and 2016. He signed a train-on contract with the Queensland Reds in 2016, and played in the

National Rugby Championship The National Rugby Championship, known as NRC, was an Australian rugby union competition. It was contested by eight teams, seven from Australia and one from Fiji. The tournament ran from 2014 until 2019 before being disbanded in 2020 following t ...

that year for where former

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987 ...

test lock

Brad Thorn Bradley Carnegie Thorn (born 3 February 1975) is a rugby union coach and former rugby league and rugby union footballer. Born in New Zealand, he represented Australia in rugby league and New Zealand in rugby union in a 22-season career as a pla ...

coached the forwards squad. In 2017, he made his Super Rugby debut for the Reds in the opening round of the season, playing South African team the

Sharks Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimorp ...

in Brisbane, as a substitute for

Rob Simmons Robert Ruhl "Rob" Simmons (born February 11, 1943) is an American politician and retired U.S. Army colonel who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2007, representing Connecticut's second congressional d ...

in the final 18 minutes of a 28–26 win. He played his first match as a starter for the Reds in Brisbane two weeks later against New Zealand side the

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

in a narrow 20–22 loss. Rodda was selected for the

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and so ...

squad by national coach

Michael Cheika Michael Cheika (born 4 March 1967) is an Australian rugby union and rugby league coach, and former rugby union player. He is currently head coach of Argentina in rugby union and Lebanon in rugby league. Cheika was the coach of the Australia r ...

in the lead up to

The Rugby Championship The Rugby Championship is an international rugby union competition contested annually by Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. These are the four highest ranked national teams in the Southern Hemisphere; the Six Nations is a s ...

series of 2017. He gained his first Test cap for Australia in the final stages of the second

Bledisloe Cup The Bledisloe Cup is an annual rugby union competition originally staged between the national teams of Australia's Wallabies and New Zealand's All Blacks that has been contested since the 1930s. The frequency that the competition is held has va ...

match of 2017, in a close 35–29 loss to New Zealand at

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

. In June 2020, Rodda signed with French

side LOU on a one-year contract. Rodda had previously left the

Reds Reds may refer to: General * Red (political adjective), supporters of Communism or socialism * Reds (January Uprising), a faction of the Polish insurrectionists during the January Uprising in 1863 * USSR (or, to a lesser extent, China) during th ...

following a refusal to take a pay cut in May 2020. He returned to Australia in 2021 to join the

Super Rugby statistics

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rodda, Izack Australia international rugby union players Australian rugby union players Living people 1996 births Sportspeople from Lismore, New South Wales Queensland Country (NRC team) players Rugby union locks Queensland Reds players Lyon OU Rugby players Western Force players Rugby union players from New South Wales 2019 Rugby World Cup players People educated at Ipswich Grammar School Expatriate rugby union players in France Australian expatriate rugby union players