William Kennedy (born 18 April 1997) 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 plays as a for the

Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks The Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks are an Australian professional rugby league club based in Cronulla, in the Sutherland Shire, Southern Sydney, New South Wales. They compete in the National Rugby League (NRL), Australasia's premier rugby league ...

in the

National Rugby League 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 ...

(NRL).

Background

Kennedy was born in

Bathurst, New South Wales Bathurst () is a city in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. Bathurst is about 200 kilometres (120 mi) west-northwest of Sydney and is the seat of the Bathurst Regional Council. Bathurst is the oldest inland settlement in ...

, Australia. Kennedy Jr is the son of former

Balmain Tigers The Balmain Tigers (also known as the Sydney Tigers from 1995–96) are a rugby league club based in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Balmain. They were a founding member of the New South Wales Rugby League and one of the most successful in t ...

player William 'Bubba' Kennedy. He played his junior rugby league for

Bathurst St Patrick's Bathurst St Patrick's, more commonly referred to as St Pat's, are an Australian rugby league football team based in the Central West city of Bathurst. St Pat's have played in the Country Rugby League-controlled Group 10 Rugby League since th ...

Playing career

2019

In round 6 of the

2019 NRL season The 2019 NRL season was the 112th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 22nd season run by the National Rugby League. The Sydney Roosters became the first team to win back-to-back Premierships since the Brisbane Broncos in 1992 ...

, Kennedy 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 the

Penrith Panthers The Penrith Panthers are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the western Sydney suburb of Penrith that competes in the NRL. The team is based west of the centre of Sydney, at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Penrith ...

. Later in 2019, Kennedy played for Cronulla's feeder club Newtown where he was part of the squads which won the 2019

Canterbury Cup NSW The NSW Cup, currently known as the Knock-On Effect NSW Cup for sponsorship reasons, is a rugby league competition for clubs in New South Wales. The competition has a history dating back to the NSWRFL's origins in 1908, starting off as a reserve ...

premiership and 2019

NRL State Championship The NRL State Championship is a rugby league match contested by the premiers of the two elite second-tier competitions in Australia, the New South Wales Cup and the Queensland Cup. The match has been played as a curtain-raiser to the NRL Grand F ...

final.

2021

In round 1 of the

2021 NRL season The 2021 NRL season was the 114th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 24th season run by the National Rugby League. Teams The lineup of teams remained unchanged for the 15th consecutive year. Regular season Ladd ...

, he scored two tries for Cronulla-Sutherland in a 32-18 victory over rivals St. George at

Kogarah Oval Jubilee Stadium, also known as Kogarah Oval or by its sponsored name Netstrata Jubilee Stadium, is a multipurpose stadium in Carlton, New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. The stadium is mainly used for rugby league and the A-League, and is one ...

. In round 4 of the

, he scored two tries for Cronulla in a 48-10 victory over North Queensland at

. In round 20 of the

, he scored two tries for Cronulla in their 22-40 loss against Manly in the "Battle of the Beaches" rivalry match. In round 23 of the

against the

Wests Tigers The Wests Tigers are an Australian professional Rugby league, rugby league football team, based in the Inner West and South West Sydney. They have competed in the National Rugby League since being formed at the end of the 1999 NRL season as a j ...

, Kennedy scored two tries for Cronulla in a 50-20 victory. Kennedy played 24 games for Cronulla and scored a total of 14 tries in the

which saw the club narrowly miss the finals by finishing 9th on the table.

2022

In round 9 of the

2022 NRL season The 2022 NRL season is the 115th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 25th season run by the National Rugby League. Teams The lineup of teams remained unchanged for the 16th consecutive year. This became the second longest s ...

, Kennedy was sent off in the first half of Cronulla's match against 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 ...

for a dangerous high tackle. Cronulla would go on to win the match despite being down to 11 men at one point in the game. In the Qualifying Final, Kennedy scored two tries for Cronulla in a 32-30 loss against

North Queensland North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the Australian state of Queensland that lies just south of Far North Queensland. Queensland is a massive state, larger than many countries, and its tropical northern part has been ...

. Kennedy played a total of 19 matches throughout the year scoring seven tries.

2023

In round 2 of the

2023 NRL season The 2023 NRL season is the 116th season of professional rugby league in Australia and the 26th season run by the National Rugby League. Teams For the 2023 season, the number of teams in the NRL has increased from sixteen to seventeen with the ...

, Kennedy scored a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

in Cronulla's 30-26 victory over

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

. In round 8, Kennedy scored his second hat-trick of the year in Cronulla's 33-20 victory over Canterbury.

Statistics

NRL

: ''Statistics are correct as of the end of round 23 of the 2023 season''

All Star

References

External links

Sharks profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kennedy, William 1997 births Living people Australian rugby league players Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks players Indigenous Australian rugby league players Newtown Jets NSW Cup players Rugby league fullbacks Rugby league players from Bathurst, New South Wales