Michael Witt (born 1 January 1984 in Toowoomba, Queensland) is an Australian professional rugby league footballer who currently signed with the St George Illawarra Dragons in the National Rugby League in 2014. He previously played in the National Rugby League competition and rugby union in the Air New Zealand Cup.
Growing up in Toowoomba, Witt attended Harristown State High School where he was a champion junior boxer and played rugby league for the Newtown Lions in the local junior competition, and he later went on to represent Queensland in rugby league at the Under 15 level in 1999 and the Under 16 level in 2000. During 1999 he was spotted by the Parramatta Eels as a player with much potential and he was offered a scholarship by the club, which he accepted, and in the following year he moved to Sydney to join his older brother Steven at Parramatta, where he spent the next three seasons in the lower grades. During the 2002 season, Witt played in the SG Ball Grand Final, where his Parramatta team was defeated 18-16 by the Western Suburbs Magpies. When Parramatta's regular halfback Paul Green was injured (causing his retirement from the game), Witt was promoted to the team as Green's replacement to make his National Rugby League debut on 2 May 2003. Despite a very promising debut from Witt, Parramatta were soundly beaten 44-12 by the Sydney Roosters in a Friday night game at Parramatta Stadium.
Before Witt's debut, Parramatta had won just two games from seven in 2003, and were looking very likely to be out of the semi finals race very early on in the season. But Witt sparked the disappointing Eels to life, and the team won ten from their last fourteen games of the season to narrowly miss qualifying for the semi finals. In one of his early games in the NRL he encountered extreme disappointment in missing two crucial, but easy (by his standards) goals which saw Parramatta lose narrowly 18-16 to the New Zealand Warriors. On The Michael Witt Story that aired on The NRL Footy Show later that year, Witt admitted that he felt like he had let the whole Parramatta organisation down with those missed attempts at goal, but he soon quickly overcame this early setback to become one of the form players in the NRL with many commentators impressed with his maturity and the sharpness of his skills. Some of the highlights of his first season included the sideline conversion to seal Parramatta's come-from-behind victory over the North Queensland Cowboys at Parramatta Stadium, and his first half effort against the South Sydney Rabbitohs at Aussie Stadium, where his two classy tries set up Parramatta's easy 34-20 win. Witt scored a haul of 18 points in that match, and was Parramatta's leading pointscorer in 2003 with 104 points from three tries, 45 goals and two field goals. His great first season in the NRL saw him win Parramatta's Rookie of the Year award as well as being selected in the New South Wales Under 19 team to play Queensland in an interstate representative match. Unfortunately though for Witt, a shoulder injury prevented him from playing. He was also among the main contenders for the prestigious Dally M Rookie Of The Year award, which was won by the Melbourne Storm's Billy Slater. Witt was rewarded for his great form with a new, lucrative four-year contract to stay with Parramatta.
