Chris Rawlinson (right) with sponsorship award winner, Ferdie Bell.
Chris Rawlinson is a very well known footballer in the Yass area and surrounds. The talented half has now tipped in to another decade but we don’t have to tell you which. He is a Peter Pan style character and appears evergreen with his mind and body, even though the body might ache a bit at night these days.
He is now passing some of the skills and experience he has acquired on to the next generation.
With Premierships at the Magpies in the mid 2000s and three more in the early 2010s at Binalong, he has excelled wherever he has gone.
He went through the Raiders’ system before returning to his home town in the early 2000s.
2026 has seen the rise of Raw League (a play on words using the first part of his last name), has seen a successful launch for both the business and for anyone who wants to improve their game.
“I’m doing school holiday clinics for the kids of all ages and then I am also doing some one-on-one clinics for anyone,” says Chris.
“I’ve done two holiday clinics, one in Binalong and one in Yass. They were one-and-a-half hour clinics.”
Within the clinics, Chris says they do a bit of passing and catching, drills, speed and agility, as well as some defence.
Defence is always an important element to concentrate on, and Chris says it’s hard to win a grand final if the team is conceding several points.
“It’s [about] teaching younger kids, or all ages, the defence mechanism[s] and learn[ing] how to tackle properly and put your head in the right way,” he says.
“That is what we are trying to teach… to keep them developing as much as they can.”
A former Raiders boy at 17-years-old and winner of a first-grade premiership in 2006 at age 21, Chris has played his fair share of first grade football for Yass, before spending three years from 2013 to 2015 at Binalong and the last two years a decade on, highlighting his resilience.
Chris has four premierships under his belt. Two in George Tooke, and one in Woodbridge Cup and one for the Magpies in the Canberra Cup.
Chris’s attributes consistently remain his ability to move agilely in his passing and succinct timing. Some of this, he says comes from his time in touch football.
With more than 400 games in experience, there’s no one better to teach the next generation. Chris’s accolades far outshine any other within the field.
Although he isn’t coaching at a senior level this year, he says he wants to put those skills to use by helping out juniors improve their skills.
For more information about Chris’s clinics, visit Instagram or Facebook at Raw League Rugby League Development.
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