KUNG FU PANTHER IS READY TO THROW PUNCHES
BRIAN To’o’s Penrith teammates want him to go Kung Fu Panda on some lockers on grand final day.
“So, they’ve been asking, yeah,” To’o grins. “They all want to see it.”
Once, you could use no hands to count the number of people wanting to see a rugby league winger throw punches.
But this 22-year-old Panther is something different. Has been ever since that Sunday afternoon in July last year, when a Fox Sports camera caught To’o warming up in the sheds like Bruce Lee in Fist of Fury.
Spinning kicks, palm strikes, uppercuts – the Kung Fu Panther delivered them all.
Yet the real magic, as always, is the story behind it. One that To’o reveals began at age nine or 10, when he first asked his old man about martial arts.
Already, he was fuelled on images of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and any other fight flicks he could find.
But, given the To’o clan barely had enough money for groceries, there would be no karate classes.
His dad instead took him into the backyard, where he dragged out an old weights bench, tipped it up on one end and said “punch this”. Which To’o did. Relentlessly. Just as the youngster would also break sticks with his fists and, from 13, began mastering acrobatic feats on a trampoline bought by an aunt.
“Best present ever,” he recalls of the Christmas gift that soon had him
attempting backflips, fly kicks and, of course, diving tries for the Panthers.
Just like he does today. Same as said tries are often followed by To’o breaking into the Conor McGregor strut.
Which for those of us old enough to remember, used to be the Vince McMahon strut. Back when the WWE owner was a big deal.
So come Sunday, why not To’o?
Certainly Panthers teammates are overflowing with their love for this winger who punches lockers, attends church and will arrive at rugby league’s showpiece event with the team boom box perched on his shoulder.
Not that things looked so good back in July, when To’o was outed six weeks after needing surgery on a syndesmosis injury sustained against Wests Tigers.
Asked about the break, he says now: “It wasn’t easy. And Mum was feeding me so much Islander food, I thought I’d come back at 150kg.”
“Corned beef, rice, taro, even chop suey.
“But it did get a bit lonely at times. At one point, I got so bored I even tried to read a book. Harry Potter. Never got past the introduction though.”
Elsewhere, To’o is not only a
regular in both church and bible study classes, but also undertakes periods of fasting with his partner.
“It’s just something special my missus and I have,” he says.
“These days people who are under so much doubt, they can fold. So it’s really helped with my confidence.”
A confidence that will be on display again Sunday. Hopefully too, those fists of the Kung Fu Panther.