Twelve months in the past, Soni Luke was enjoying in entrance of half a dozen folks at park footy grounds in Sydney suburbs you do not hear a lot about, and the NRL dream he’d been chasing all his life could not have felt additional away.
Life within the Ron Massey Cup, rugby league’s third tier competitors, is much from glamorous. It is robust, laborious footy, with a couple of former first graders thrown within the combine however valuable few future debutants.
Luke was working round for his junior membership, St Mary’s, towards groups like Mounties and Hills and Wentworthville, and given his twenty sixth birthday was on the horizon he would have been forgiven for considering this was to be his lot within the rugby league life.
“If somebody had instructed me what would occur subsequent, I would have instructed them they had been loopy,” Luke stated.
Luke is that traditional rugby league story of an in a single day success that is years within the making. He grew to become Penrith Panther quantity 607 when he ran out towards Canberra on Sunday, and given he is been named once more for this week’s conflict towards the Titans he is received one other probability to make up for misplaced time.
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Luke got here by means of the grades with the likes of Nathan Cleary, Jarome Luai, James Fisher-Harris, Moses Leota and Dylan Edwards, and he was as soon as tipped for as many first grade glories as any of them.
Perhaps greater than most of them, in truth, given he captained the Panthers to an Below 20s premiership in 2015 and gained man of the match within the grand last win over a Manly aspect which contained Tom Trbojevic, Liam Knight and Nicho Hynes.
However Luke simply by no means appeared to get a fair break. He at all times did properly in reserve grade, and at any time when he did go all the way down to Ron Massey Cup he was near one of the best participant within the competitors, however the playing cards by no means fell his approach.
“After all there have been occasions I believed like giving up. I had three back-to-back shoulder reconstructions on the identical aspect, had a yr at Wests, got here again to Penrith and did my pec on the opposite aspect,” Luke stated.
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“That was most likely the primary time I thought of giving up the dream. However fortunate I did not, trigger I received my debut.”
That elusive first begin lastly got here on the ripe outdated age of 26 in final week’s win over Canberra, the place Luke arrange a attempt for Isaah Yeo with certainly one of his first touches and appeared each bit the participant who was tipped for stardom all these years in the past.
It had been a few years since he performed with Cleary and Luai and all the remainder of his mates who’ve turn out to be essentially the most well-known names within the recreation, however reuniting with them on the largest stage made his maiden voyage in first grade all of the sweeter.
“It was superior, it is a dream come true to play at a packed out (stadium). All of the boys received round me as properly, that was most likely one of the best a part of working on,” Luke stated.
“Guys like Nath, Romey, Dylan Edwards, Fish, we’re throughout the identical age and we performed all our juniors collectively however we’ve not received the prospect to play with one another for 5 – 6 years.
“We had a chat about it in the course of the week, simply how lengthy it has been. The boys had been simply as stoked as I used to be, that was a very cool a part of it.
“I am fortunate I grew up with the boys, as a result of it means Ivan (Cleary) and Cirro (Cameron Ciraldo) know what I can do and what I am able to.
“I educated actually laborious over the break, received my health proper, and there is most likely a little bit of proper place, proper time about it as properly.”
Luke performed properly on debut, displaying glimpses of the working recreation that is made him such a stand-out within the decrease grades. These laborious yards in video games no one ever noticed all paid off without delay.
With Api Koroisau heading for the Tigers for 2023, Luke might properly compete with Mitch Kenny for the vacant hooking spot, and turn out to be the primary grade common he promised to be all these years in the past.
“It falls again to the system and the standard of gamers I’ve round me,” Luke stated.
“A few the boys hit me up and simply to maintain doing the issues I used to be doing in Cup, and if I wasn’t I wasn’t filling my position and that is all I needed to do. That gave me numerous confidence.”
