The Brisbane Broncos have made another addition to their NRL Top 30 for 2023, with confirmation the club has promoted highly-rated 18-year-old Blake Mozer to the squad.
The club has just extended the contract of current dummy-half Billy Walters and the club also has Corey Paix waiting in the wings, so it's believed that Mozer will serve as an understudy for now.
The youngster is considered one of the best dummy-half talents to emerge from the Queensland system in years and has already drawn comparisons to Storm, Maroons and Australian legend Cameron Smith.
With the possibility of NRL football at such an early age, there's even the possibility that Mozer could go on to pass Smith's record for NRL appearances one day.
“Blake will be in our squad full-time this pre-season,” Broncos academy and recruitment chief Simon Scanlan told the Daily Telegraph.
“He's an outstanding young talent, one of the best we've ever had come through the academy.
“He has a similar physique to Cameron Smith. He's tall for a hooker, lean up top but he has very stong legs.
“He's coming off a couple of surgeries, so the main focus for Blake is to get some weight on and establish himself regularly in the Queensland Cup with a view to debuting at some stage in 2023.
“I expect him to debut at some stage at the back half of the year. This year is more of a development year for Blake, rather than being a regular week-to-week in the NRL.
“The big thing is he wants to win and he wants to be the best.”
It's believed the Broncos upgraded Mozer's status so early in the hopes of fending off interest from rivals. He's contracted to the club until the end of 2025.
2022 was a great year for Mozer, being named man of the match for Souths Logan in their Mal Meninga Cup grand final win and also making his Queensland Cup debut and represent Queensland at under-19s level.
“Blake's a very smart player,” Scanlan continued.
“He'll always take the right option. He's not selfish, he will take the best option for the team and that makes him very good.”
“Blake would want to play in the NRL tomorrow, but we will be patient with him.”
