‘Go get his name’: How a delayed flight saw Roosters snare prodigy from under rival’s nose

On Friday night, Robert Toia will face the club that once had him in its system but a chance encounter sent his career in a very different direction.

Before Toia became one of the Sydney Roosters most important weapons, he was a promising teenager juggling commitments between the Redcliffe Dolphins and the famed St Josephs Nudgee College.

Then came the day that changed everything.

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Toia was playing at the Under-15s Met North trials in Brisbane when then-Roosters recruitment boss Daniel Anderson arrived late after a delay to his flight.

While Anderson and a colleague could have remained at the airport, they decided to stop by at the trial being held at Norths Devils.

They were there for barely two minutes.

In that time, Anderson saw Toia, who was playing fullback at the time, leap to catch a ball, produce a fend and step his way through the defensive line.

“One minute I saw Rob jump up, catch the ball, do a little bit of a fend and a step,” Toia’s father Beau said to foxsports.com.au after recalling what Anderson had told him.

Anderson had seen enough.

“Go get his name. I want him now for the Roosters.”

The rest is history.

Already on the radar of several clubs at the time, Toia had been in the Dolphins academy during Under-14s and Under-15s.

“He was in the system of the Redcliffe Dolphins. They had this academy thing going on and he was in the academy there,” Beau said.

“He was in Under-14s and 15s in the Dolphins academy. They’ll select a couple of kids playing in the juniors and he was really lucky to be one of those.

“Some of the kids his age got scouted into other teams like Jye Gray, Liam Le Blanc and Drew Timms.

“But then he went to Nudgee College. As he got older, he prioritised the school. He would train Tuesday and Thursday with the Dolphins and train with Nudgee on Monday, Wednesday and play Saturday and then play with the Dolphins on Sunday.

“It got to a time when he and his Mum thought it was too much for him. He loved playing with the boys in Redcliffe and the boys in Nudgee, so he had no choice but to play Saturday and Sunday.”

The Dolphins identified Toia early while he was also part of the Broncos pathways as a 12 and 13-year-old.

However, rugby league wasn’t his only sporting option.

With Toia starring for Nudgee College - one of the best rugby union schools in the world - the Queensland Reds also came knocking

“I really don’t know if he thought of going down that path to be honest because the Reds came knocking as well,” his father added.

“We went to a meeting with the Reds when he was at Nudgee and there was one thing that really got me buzzing.

“He was named in the World Schoolboys XV and he was named as the centre.”

And then there was also basketball.

“There was someone that plays basketball for Australia or plays in the Australian league and they said to him, Rob you should check out basketball,” Beau continued.

“I think you’ve got to feature in basketball not knowing that he’s already in the Roosters system.

“He’s a basketball freak.”

But for all the interest from other clubs and sports, Anderson’s two minute viewing had already set Toia on his path to the NRL.

“Once the Roosters popped up it was a done deal for him,” Beau said.

“This is because they had guys like Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Joseph Manu and Latrell Mitchell.

“I remember we went to Sydney and Robbo [Trent Robinson] was there and said who’s your favourite player to pull them out of their training session and he said Latrell Mitchell.”

TOIA’S TOUGHEST CHAPTER

After committing to the Roosters, Robert Toia was about to start the next chapter of his career.

Then came a moment that threatened to derail everything.

In his final match for Nudgee College, Toia ruptured his ACL.

The timing could not have been worse.

Seven days later, he was due to fly to Sydney and begin training with the Roosters NRL squad, with an NRL debut on the horizon.

For his father, the injury brought back difficult memories of his own knee surgery as well as that of his older son, who had suffered his own ACL injury before his football career was able to take off.

A talented prospect at the time, he decided to walk away from the sport, with the fear of his knee giving out again lingering in the back of his mind.

So when Robert went down, Beau knew exactly what the road ahead would look like.

“Many things were going through my head because with what I’ve been through with my knee surgery and my older son who also went through it,” Beau said.

“He was a good footy player but once he had his ACL he gave up because it was always on his mind that his legs were going to give way again.

“It was a tough one for (Robert) and for him to do his knee. I was just trying to comfort him.”

While the injury put his dream of making his NRL debut on hold, the Roosters immediately showed Toia their belief in him had not wavered.

Suffering the injury on Saturday afternoon, by Sunday morning, the club flew him to Sydney to undergo surgery.

“He did it on that Saturday afternoon and the Roosters found out and flew him out on the Sunday morning to get surgery done. Even Nick Politis gave him a call that night,” Beau added.

“We were all at home about to have dinner later on that evening and his phone goes off. His phone rings and he sort of changes.

“It’s like he was talking to Jesus. Then he tries to get up. We tell him, no, because he was trying to get up off his crutches, but he just sat there at the table and said it was Nick Politis calling.”

After completing rehabilitation and returning to the field, his road back was about to get even harder.

Just six matches into his comeback, Toia fractured his jaw while playing NSW Cup.

Then, when it seemed like his injury troubles had come to an end, he ruptured his ACL for a second time at training, sending him straight back into another lengthy rehabilitation.

“The second time he did it, I was starting to run out of words. We all just started crying together,” Beau said.

“We had to pick him up from the airport and seeing him stand there with his head down was so disheartening.

“I was driving and literally couldn’t see one metre in front of me. For someone to train so hard and say, “Dad, why is it happening to me?” that really broke me.

“The club stood by him and encouraged him a lot. They always checked up on him. The senior players always messaged him and made sure he did his rehab.”

Never left to face his rehabilitation alone, the Roosters kept checking on him, while the club’s senior players regularly reached out to make sure he stayed on track.

One of those players was Billy Smith.

Although the pair barely spoke in their early years together at the club, that changed when they found themselves going through almost identical battles to get back on the field.

“If anyone knows Bobby, he’s a man of few words. He doesn’t say much. I don’t think I spoke to him for the first two years at the club, but I was lucky I spoke to him when we did our knees,” Smith told foxsports.com.au.

“We both had ACL injuries at a similar time so we spent a large chunk of our rehab together. We were able to form a bit of a bond there and you could tell straight away he’s very, very athletically gifted.

“But the work he’s put and the smarts of the game have really shone through this year and last year.

“He’s now one of the greatest centres in the NRL game. It’s pretty special to watch.

“He’s worked so hard to put himself in a position to be where he’s at the moment and it’s a credit to the club as well for sticking by him.

“They did a very similar thing with me, sticking by me throughout all my hardships and it’s paying dividends for them now.”

Reflecting on the back-to-back ACL ruptures in 2025, Toia revealed it became the toughest chapter of his young career.

However, it also reinforced how much belief and faith the Roosters had in him.

“It was very tough and it was definitely the toughest time of my life,” Toia told this columnist in 2025 after his NRL debut.

“I kind of always need to have the self-belief and I’m glad I got to show a bit of that.

“I credit my family, my parents and my partner and then just the club, for the support they had and backing me the whole way through.

“I was away from home most of the time, but every time the club would send me back (home) throughout my injuries, just seeing them [my family] at home, you don’t really care about the injuries.

“They were just loving me for me. The club and Robbo to have that trust in me just meant the world.”

THE HERBIE TEST…AND WHAT LIES NEXT

Already having tasted Origin success with the Queensland Maroons, Robert Toia now sits one victory away from reaching his maiden grand final.

But standing in his way is Dolphins star, Herbie Farnworth.

The two centres will go head-to-head on Friday night in a blockbuster battle which could help determine whether the Roosters can return to the NRL Grand Final for the first time since 2019.

“I think you see the tackle-busting ability he has and I feel like his ball movement is pretty underrated,” Toia said on the English international.

“He tends to get involved not just on the offensive side but the defensive side as well, so credit to him.

“I think just pressuring him, getting my d-movement right and hopefully it stops him doing what he does best.”

Friday’s preliminary final is a far cry from where Toia found himself just a few years ago.

After multiple injuries threatened to derail his career, the youngster has since emerged as one of the Tricolours’ most important weapons.

“He’s a gun. To be able to play alongside someone like that week in, week out is pretty exciting and it’s pretty good to have that strike out wide,” teammate and NSW Blues hooker Reece Robson told foxsports.com.au.

To see what he’s already doing so young is probably why a lot of people think he is older than he is.

“But I see it every day at training and all the effort he puts in and all the prep he puts into his body to make sure he is at the level he’s in week in, week out.

“It’s a credit to him and he’s a great player. He’s very humble, very quiet but a really good fella.”

Speaking about Toia, veteran front-rower Lindsay Collins has watched his rise from the inside, seeing glimpses of his potential before he went through all the setbacks.

“We always saw snippets of him and little glimpses and it was pretty amazing. We always knew he was going to be a good footy player,” Collins, a Maroons teammate of Toia told foxsports.com.au.

“It was just the setbacks that he had but he is a monster in the gym. He’s one of our strongest pound-for-pound.

“We knew it was going to come and he’s last two seasons have been amazing for him. It’s really good to see how far he’s come and the experiences he has already gone through is like a career’s worth of experiences in such a short time.

“I think everyone’s seen that progression over those injuries and that’s sometimes what those injuries can do for you.

“The growth you get from them. They’re experiences you can’t buy and they’re not the experience you want to have but they’re the experience you get to have and take a bit from each of them.”

Fellow Roosters teammate Salesi Foketi has also been impressed by his consistency on the field and ability to perform at the highest level week in, week out.

“Everyone can see what Bobby can do and I’m just as excited watching him from the other side of the field,” he told foxsports.com.au.

“He’s been consistent and was just unfortunate with those injuries.”

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