Will Zillman: from footy veteran to veterinarian

An NRL footballer no less, who played 180 first grade games over 12 seasons with the Canberra Raiders and Gold Coast Titans.

Today, he is Will Zillman the veterinarian, which even Will admits is quite the contrast. How it transpired – and Southern Cross University's place in the process – is both admirable and fascinating.

During his NRL career, Will gave football all that his body could give. At the same time, he never lost sight of elite sport’s inevitable reality: it does not last forever.

As he pondered post-career opportunities, Will resolved to follow football with something truly tangible. He turned to his love of horses, capitalising on that and the expert horsemanship honed while growing up on his family’s cattle station near Proserpine in North Queensland.

Will was still playing professional footy when he established Will Zillman Horsemanship at Currumbin on the Gold Coast in 2012. Offering a full range of horsemanship services, beach and trail riding, horse starting and training, the business perfectly complemented Will's Bachelor of Business studies at Southern Cross University.

“The degree was a perfect fit for me,” says Will. “Because of my rugby league commitments, I needed to study online. Southern Cross University enabled that. It was also a highly regarded business degree, and I thrived in it.

“One of my thoughts with the degree was to pursue an interest in property development. Quite a few NRL players invest in property, so I thought there might be an opportunity in the field.

“At the same time, my equine business was growing and that got me thinking about veterinary science. It seemed a bit of a pipe dream at first and I knew it would take me a long time while I was still playing professional sport.

“But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I have always had an affinity with animals, especially horses.”

Talk to Will about horses and the conversation gallops along.

“I think the horse is the most beautiful animal on Earth,” he says. “For something so big and so strong, they are also so delicate. 

“You must be calm around horses. This is a 600kg ball of bone and muscle that is skittish about everything. Establishing a positive connection only comes through patience and confidence, never force. You must build trust, and when it happens, it is wonderful. You become a team.”

When he retired from football in 2017, Southern Cross University did not have a veterinary science degree, so Will studied at the University of Queensland. He is excited that Southern Cross has launched a veterinary science program in 2025 at its Lismore campus.

The Bachelor of Veterinary Technology is a three-year, full-time degree that will train students across a range of veterinary and animal care techniques. It is complemented by the Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (Honours), a five-year, full-time degree set to launch in 2026, that trains students to work as a registered veterinarian.

“It's such a fantastic development,” says Will. “Australia needs more vets and there are not many veterinary schools to train them. That is why it is so important for regional universities like Southern Cross University to offer degrees applicable to their location and where the need is great.”

Will tempers his enthusiasm with some sound advice for prospective students.

“Becoming a vet means entering a crazy world. There is a phenomenal amount to absorb, with so many different species, systems and symptoms to understand. 

“But once you get there, it is so rewarding because veterinary care makes such a difference.”

That word “affinity” comes in again as Will speaks about the merit of attracting veterinary students from a regional catchment – young people raised on farms, knowledgeable about rural life, and well suited to providing veterinary services after qualification.

As a shareholder and practitioner with the VetLove group, Will has a foot in both rural and urban camps, dividing his professional time between surgeries at Casuarina in the NSW Northern Rivers and Nobby Beach on the Gold Coast.

He still loves his football and admits he would have liked to have played a few more years at the highest level. No regrets, though. The dedication and desire for excellence that once exemplified Will's football career are now doing the same in his veterinary career. 

“I am proud of what I have achieved,” he says. “It has taken time, but I committed to it and stuck with it, starting with my business degree at Southern Cross University.

“It has helped me on a number of levels, from giving me the study experience I could then take into a degree as demanding as veterinary science, and also by informing the way I have gone about business practice, first with Will Zillman Horsemanship and now with VetLove.”

“And now that the university is launching its own veterinary program, I think the students will be in very good hands.”