Nathan Stapleton (born 1 December 1989) is an Australian professional

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 ...

footballer who last played for the

London Broncos The London Broncos are a professional rugby league club in London, England. The club competes in the RFL Championship. It was a member of Super League from its inaugural season in 1996 until the end of the 2014 season, when they were relegat ...

in the

Kingstone Press Championship The Championship, known as the Betfred Championship for sponsorship reasons, is a professional rugby league competition. It is the second-tier competition organised by the Rugby Football League, the governing body for the sport in England, a ...

. He previously played for the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks in the National Rugby League. He primarily played as a and .

Playing career

Born in

Deepwater, New South Wales Deepwater is a parish and small town 40 kilometres north of Glen Innes on the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. At the 2006 census, Deepwater had a population of 307, with 489 people in the area. Deepwater is located on the New ...

, Stapleton played his junior football for Glen Innes Magpies before being signed by the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks. He played for Cronulla's NYC team in 2008 and 2009. In Round 11 of the

2009 NRL season The 2009 NRL season was the 102nd season of professional rugby league football club competition in Australia, and the twelfth run by the National Rugby League. For the third consecutive year, sixteen teams competed for the 2009 Telstra Premiership ...

, Stapleton made his

NRL The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

debut for Cronulla against rivals

St. George Illawarra The St. George Illawarra Dragons is an Australian professional rugby league football club, representing both the Illawarra and St George regions of New South Wales. The club has competed in the National Rugby League since 1999 after a joint-ve ...

. In round 5 of the

2014 NRL season The 2014 NRL season was the 107th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 17th season of the National Rugby League in Australia and New Zealand. The season started in New Zealand, for the Auckland Nines, replacing the Rugby Leagu ...

, Stapleton scored 4 tries for Cronulla as they defeated the

New Zealand Warriors The New Zealand Warriors are a professional rugby league football club based in Auckland, New Zealand that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL) premiership and is the League's only team from outside Australia. They were formed in 1995 as ...

37–6 at Shark Park. On 30 June 2014, Stapleton signed with Sydney Roosters mid-season for the remainder of the year. On 6 August 2015, Stapleton signed with English franchise

on a one-year deal beginning in 2016.

Representative career

In 2012, Stapleton played for the

Prime Minister's XIII Prime Minister's XIII, or sometimes informally referred to as the PM's XIII, is the name of a representative rugby league team, comprising Australian players from National Rugby League clubs that did not qualify for the NRL Finals, or whose tea ...

Personal life

Stapleton is the younger brother of former

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

Brett Stapleton Brett Stapleton (born 7 May 1987) is an Australian former rugby union player who played for the Western Force in the Super 14 competition in 2007. Frustrated by the lack of opportunity in Perth due to the Force’s plethora of quality backline ...

. Stapleton's mother died of cancer in 2013. In 2022, Stapleton was taken to hospital after sustaining a neck injury in a rugby union match. He was left paralysed from the shoulders down.

References

External links

2014 Sydney Roosters profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stapleton, Nathan 1989 births Living people Australian rugby league players Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks players London Broncos players New South Wales Residents rugby league team players Prime Minister's XIII players Rugby league fullbacks Rugby league wingers Rugby league centres Rugby league players from New South Wales