Commuter Kiwi teen a Rooster league star

Reuben Porter takes a weekly flight to Sydney when school's out to play for the Sydney Roosters. Photo / Michael Craig

When schoolboy rugby league sensation Reuben Porter finishes class each week, he grabs his passport and a backpack and heads to the airport.

The talented 17-year-old Mt Albert Grammar student is on a weekly commute from his West Auckland home to Sydney, on a three-year contract at champion NRL team the Sydney City Roosters.

Since January, he has juggled a weekly transtasman commute to Sydney with attending his final year at school.

New Zealand Rugby League communications manager Grant Chapman said the Roosters were the only club to fly teenage development players between countries who are still completing high school studies.

Today, Porter is travelling even further afield with the Roosters to a promotional nines tournament in Scotland, ahead of next month's Commonwealth Games.

Porter finds the travelling tiring but he loves it.

"It's a really good experience but it takes a big toll on your body."

He has learned to pack light to pass swiftly through Customs - apart from when he first flew across to settle into his weekend "second home" at the start of the year.

Playing at the Roosters has let him rub shoulders with some of the code's elite, including another Mt Albert old boy, Sonny Bill Williams.

Roosters recruitment manager Peter O'Sullivan said Porter was a "cracking kid" who ticked every box.

"We fly him over on a weekly basis on the proviso his grades don't suffer. As it happens, they've got better."

Said mum Marion Porter: "It was either going to work or not and this is a good way to find out."

Her one regret is missing her son's matches.