Rugby league fans across Australia and New Zealand are still buzzing after Apa Twidle’s sensational NRL debut for the Parramatta Eels on Easter Monday, a performance that delivered two tries in his first two touches and cemented his name as one of the most exciting new prospects in the competition. But beyond the on-field highlights, the 20-something winger’s journey to the top of the sport is a story of sacrifice, loss, and unwavering family support that has captured the hearts of rugby league supporters everywhere.
Before the blockbuster clash against the Wests Tigers, few casual fans knew Twidle’s name. Just one week prior, he had turned heads in the lower-tier NSW Cup with a four-try haul against premiers Penrith Panthers, but he was still expected to ease into first-grade football off the Eels’ bench. That changed when starting winger Bailey Simonsson dislocated his ankle early in the match, forcing the rookie into the game far earlier than planned.
What followed was debut magic Twidle and NRL fans will not soon forget: he scored a brilliant, boundary-hugging try with his very first touch of top-level football, then crossed the try line again just two minutes later. By the end of the match, clips of his debut were circulating widely on social media, and he was even named the NRL’s fan-voted Tasman Try of the Week for Round 5 just days later.
But for Twidle, the moment was far more than a career breakout – it was the culmination of a years-long journey that began when he left his home in New Zealand at just 16 years old to pursue his dream of professional rugby league in Australia. Moving alone to Brisbane to play school football at Marsden State High School, the young teen struggled profoundly with loneliness and homesickness, even calling his mother begging to book a return flight home after his first weekend away.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get homesick. I got homesick every day,” Twidle recalled after Monday’s match. “I was young and dumb, it was one of the hardest times in my life. But my mum, dad, and brothers kept pushing me to stay the course. My brothers are my idols – they taught me you don’t get anywhere without hard work, and that’s what stuck with me.”
After finishing high school, Twidle signed with the Parramatta Eels’ underage program and moved to Sydney at 18 to live with his aunt, continuing to work his way up through the club’s ranks. Through his early years in Brisbane, he was fostered and trained by Paul Brown, a local coach who took him in without asking for anything in return, pushing him to train harder than he ever had before. Brown, who kept his terminal cancer diagnosis private from even Twidle, passed away last year – just one week after Twidle’s daughter was born.
“I wouldn’t be standing right here right now if it wasn’t for that guy,” Twidle said. “He was the reason I stayed in the game, he got me where I am. I wrote his initials on my strapping for the debut – he’s with me everywhere. I never even got a photo of him with my daughter. That’s something that hurts me still. When I found out he’d passed the morning after my daughter was born, I was bawling my eyes out all day.”
Monday’s debut was full of other emotional surprises for Twidle too. His mother Pura, who still lives in Hamilton, New Zealand, had originally been told not to bother coming by Twidle, who did not expect to get much game time in his first match. But after his aunt pressured her to make the cross-Tasman trip, she booked a last-minute flight on Sunday morning and flew into Sydney just hours before kickoff, bringing Twidle’s seven-month daughter – who Brown never got to meet – with her to CommBank Stadium.
“When we met after the game, we didn’t even say anything, we just started crying,” Twidle said. “Tears of joy, obviously. That emotion just came pouring out – this is what all the hard years were for.”
As with any remarkable debut, Twidle’s big day came with a bitter twist: he suffered a Grade 3 AC joint tear, a complete ligament rupture to his shoulder, during one of his tackles, and left the field with his arm in a sling. The injury rules him out of selection for the Eels’ next round clash, but the young rookie says he is already looking ahead to what comes next after a rollercoaster debut he will never forget.