Mitchell Pearce

Mitchell Pearce

Personal information
Full name	Mitchell Pearce
Nickname	Junior Junior, Ju-Ju, Juey
Born	7 April 1989 (1989-04-07) (age 22) Sydney, Australia
Height	183 cm (6 ft 0 in)
Weight	90 kg (14 st 2 lb)
Playing information
Position	Halfback
Club
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
2007–	Sydney Roosters	108	29	0	3	119
Representative
Years	Team	Pld	T	G	FG	P
2008	City Origin	2	0	0	0	0
2008–	New South Wales	5	1	0	0	4

Mitchell Pearce (born 7 April 1989) is an Australian rugby league footballer currently playing for the Sydney Roosters in the National Rugby League. A representative for New South Wales in State of Origin, Pearce's position of choice is halfback.

Senior career

Debut season

Pearce made his National Rugby League debut for the Sydney Roosters on 24 March 2007 against the North Queensland Cowboys at Dairy Farmers Stadium.^[1] After only three First Grade appearances for the Roosters, Pearce's contract was extended by the club to until the end of the 2010 season.^[2]

Pearce had a solid debut season, scoring 2 tries and registering 13 try assists.^[3] Despite this, a back injury kept him out of the latter part of the season.^[4] In an early career highlight, Pearce ran 80 metres to score a last-minute try, snatching victory for the Sydney Roosters against the Penrith Panthers in a 24–20 win on 16 June 2007.^[5]

2008 season

Pairing Braith Anasta in the halves, Pearce had a strong start to the 2008 season. His performances in the early rounds were such that he was considered in the running for the New South Wales halfback position for the 2008 Rugby League State of Origin series.^[6][7] Pearce's Origin chances were strengthened when he was named as starting half-back for the City Origin Team in the annual City vs Country Origin match.^[8] In his senior representative debut, Pearce played a solid game, helping City to a 22-all draw with Country.^[9] Pearce's Origin dream was finally realised when, on 24 June 2008, it was announced that he would replace the injured Peter Wallace as halfback for the NSW Blues against Queensland in the 2008 Origin Decider at ANZ Stadium on July 2.

2009 season

This season is not a good one despite losing partner Braith Anasta to a season-ending knee injury, he cannot find good form for the Roosters.^{[citation needed]}

2010 season

This season kicked off very well for Mitchell Pearce. He scored 2 tries in Round 1 and also in Round 2. He continued to impress the crowd with his partners, Braith Anasta and Todd Carney. The switch of Todd Carney to his preferred role at five-eighth allowed the two to create a powerful combo which was deemed by many as the best halves pairing in the league. Before Game I of State of Origin, he suffered shoulder injury which put him out six weeks and missed out the opening. He then became the halfback for games II and III of State of Origin. Unfortunately, he had little influence on both games, seemingly reluctant to accept responsibility for play-making. The Sydney Roosters leady by Pearce, set off for a finals charge at the end of the season, and made it to the finals. Carney and Pearce were amazing, in every thing they did. In the first match of the finals, they took on the tigers and we losing by 13 points with 11 minutes on the clock to go. Then Carney chipped and chased and score, meaning the roosters were 7 points behind. Jake Friend came out of dummy-half and passes a brilliant line ball to Carney. Who then passed another perfect line ball which put Mitchell Pearce under the posts. With 1 minute left the tigers had the ball at their 10 m line. The game looked all over for the Roosters before Frank Paul Nuualsala got the ball off the scrum. They passed left, then back right, then Anasta called for the ball and he went for the field goal 40 m out on the sideline and got it in. The game went for 100 minutes, until Shaun Kenny Dowal got an intercept and ran the length of the field to score in the corner.

External links

• Sydney Roosters profile
• NRL profile

References

1. ^ Mitchell Pearce – profile NRL. Retrieved 11 March 2008
2. ^ Roosters extend Pearce's contract Fox Sports News. Retrieved 11 March 2008
3. ^ Mitchell Pearce statistics NRL Stats. Retrieved 8 May 2008
4. ^ Pearce out for six weeks Sydney Roosters. Retrieved 8 May 2008
5. ^ Rookies get Roosters home SportsAustralia.com. Retrieved 8 May 2008
6. ^ Pearce born to be a leader Fox Sports News. Retrieved 8 May 2008
7. ^ Pearce firmly in Origin hunt Fox Sports News. Retrieved 8 May 2008
8. ^ Pearce gets his chance in City-Country clash Live News. Retrieved 8 May 2008
9. ^ Honours shared in City Country clash ABC News. Retrieved 8 May 2008

Persondata
Name	Pearce, Mitchell
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	7 April 1989
Place of birth	Sydney
Date of death
Place of death