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Billy Slater

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**Billy Slater**
Personal information

Full name	Billy Slater
Date of birth	18 June 1983 (1983-06-18) (age 24)
Place of birth	Nambour, Queensland, Australia
Height	178 cm (5 ft 10 ins)
Weight	87 kg (13 st 9 lbs)
Nickname(s)	Billy the Kid
Club information
Position(s)	Fullback
Current club	Melbourne Storm
Number	1
Youth clubs
Years	Club
	Innisfail Brothers
Senior clubs*
Years	Club	Apps (points)
2003–	Melbourne Storm	107 (280)
Representative teams**
2004–2005	Queensland	5 (16)
* Professional club appearances and points counted for domestic first grade only and correct as of 14:17, 24 October 2007 (UTC). ** Representative team caps and points correct as of 2 October 2006.

Billy Slater (born June 18 1983 in Nambour, Queensland) is an Australian rugby league player for the Melbourne Storm in the National Rugby League (NRL) competition. He has also played for Queensland. His preferred position is Fullback; though he can also play at centre or on the wings.

1 Playing career
2 Melbourne Storm
3 2006 season
4 2007 season
- 4.1 Representative games
5 Trivia
6 Footnotes
7 External links

Playing career

Billy began playing rugby league for the Brothers club in Innisfail, Queensland at only four years old. He continued to make the Innisfail representative side every season until his final year with the club. At fifteen years of age he become bored with league so he quit to concentrate on one of his other passions, riding horses. He worked with the famous Waterhouse stable for around half a year before becoming homesick. He began to play league again after returning home and early in 2001 he drove 20 hours to Brisbane to trial with the Norths Devils. He was offered a contract and after two impressive seasons in the Queensland Cup, he was offered a spot on the Melbourne Storm playing roster.

Melbourne Storm

Slater commenced playing for the Melbourne Storm in 2003 and his impressive debut performance should have seen him awarded the Dally M Rookie of the Year award, but these awards were cancelled by the NRL due to threats of a boycott by the Players Association. He has consistently performed since then. He is notable for his speed, instinctive style of play and an ability to inject himself into games at key moments.

2006 season

Slater had a forgettable 2006 season. He was suspended in round 4 for seven matches for kicking Wests Tigers prop John Skandalis. In his comeback game in round 13 against the Sydney Roosters, Slater only played 25 minutes of the second half on the wing and was later found guilty of using a dangerous throw on Roosters centre Ryan Cross. He was suspended for 2 matches. After Slater's second suspension, Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy decided to give Slater some warm up matches for his comeback into first grade with both North Sydney Bears (Melbourne's feeder club in the NSWRL Premier League) and Norths Devils (Melbourne's feeder club in the Queensland Cup). He made his proper comeback in round 18 playing his preferred fullback position when Melbourne Storm defeated the Brisbane Broncos at Olympic Park 10-4 in front of 15,479 fans. In round 22 against the Wests Tigers, he was given a two match suspension for a late forearm, which was his third suspension for the season. He came back to the main lineup in round 25 against the Canberra Raiders. A few weeks later, he played in his first grand final, where, despite losing he played a fine game.

2007 season

Slater had been quiet to start the 2007 season, not taking notice of the Queensland selectors. In round 11, he suffered a badly broken cheekbone against Manly when he tried to charge down former team mate Matt Orford's kick, and collided with teammate Sam Tagatese. On his return from injury, he has been in career best form, scoring 8 tries from 9 appearances and becoming a vital cog in the back line of the Storm, setting up over 20 tries this season. He was part of the 2007 NRL Premiership team, beating Manly Sea-Eagles 34-8. Some felt he was unlucky to miss out on the Clive Churchill medal for best player on the ground for his effort in the game and gaining 182 meters. ^[1] ^[2]