This Sunday afternoon, promising young talent Jock Madden will be making his starting debut for the Wests Tigers against the Penrith Panthers.

Madden has been highly touted by Wests Tigers fans who have watched him rise through the ranks and play for the Magpies in the Knock-On Effect New South Wales Cup, and now they will get to see what he is made of against competition heavyweights in the Panthers.

We got to see a glimpse of the 21-year-old during his NRL debut when he came off the bench for the Tigers against the Newcastle Knights at Magic Round.

During that game, Madden played 13 minutes where he made a tackle and ran for 13 run metres.

In the Knock-On Effect New South Wales Cup, Madden scored eight tries, got six try assists, seven line-break assists, averaged 63 running metres per game and made 200 tackles for an efficiency rate of 82.6%.

 
The Wests Tigers halfback situation has been headline news recently, with the implications for Madden not really addressed, as it seems Luke Brooks is set to leave the club, but a ready-made replacement is already on the way through Jackson Hastings, meaning the former Australian Schoolboy will likely be stuck in reserve grade for another year, and at 21-years-old, he would really want to be properly breaking into first grade at this point.

Madden is available to negotiate with rival clubs come November 1st and is off-contract at the end of 2022, meaning that if he is not able to break into first grade consistently, he will likely look for a move elsewhere and understandably so, meaning the Wests Tigers risk losing yet another potential superstars.

Clubs that could be taking an interest in Madden at the moment include the Newcastle Knights, as former captain Mitchell Pearce is getting older and is off-contract at the end of next season, the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs if they have not secured a first grade quality halfback by then and the Cronulla Sutherland Sharks if they are not happy with whoever they promote to partner Nicho Hynes in the halves for the club in 2022.