“There might be 50 people in town. We’ve got a pub, the rodeo ground, a couple of houses and not too much else.”
Jack Todd, the newest Bulldog at Belmore, didn’t need much else. But he does need to clarify that he’s a proud, not-so-loud product of tiny Upper Horton.
Even his club website lists the 22-year-old prop as hailing from Dungowan, a few hours south.
But Todd and his family are now the toast of Canterbury after his first two NRL games, which parents Richard and Angela drove seven hours each way to attend from their 7000-acre cattle farm near Upper Horton.
Todd’s debut really should have come last season. But his rugby league rise was waylaid by two broken arms, one after the other, the first leaving him with an impressive eight-centimetre scar resting above a metal plate and 10 screws.
By all accounts, the front-rower is a man of few words. And it turns out, a few bumps and bruises too.
Jack Todd celebrates his Bulldogs debut in his dad’s Akubra hat.Credit: Bulldogs Digital
“Oh mate, I’ve had my share of broken bones,” he laughs.
“Most of them aren’t from footy, just growing up on a farm, being a country boy, you get a little bit used to it.
“When I was a kid I knew how to find an accident on the farm, riding motorbikes and horses, plenty of fun and plenty of scrapes.
“A ute tray fell on me when I was young, mucking around in the shed. It hit me in the face and landed on my leg, broke both [tibia and fibula] bones. I was very young for that one.
Bulldogs rookie Jack Todd celebrates his NRL debut with family and friends.Credit: NRL Imagery
“When I was 13 or 14 I fractured my kneecap coming off a motorbike. I landed on my knee and actually broke it at the top where the ACL joins onto the knee. I had surgery and a few pins in there that were taken out.
“Most of the other breaks and injuries were from footy, the two arm breaks got me last year, but it’s good to be back playing.”
Todd celebrated his NRL debut against Cronulla with a small army of family and friends. Wearing his dad’s Akubra hat in the Bulldogs dressing sheds after the game completed the night.
A jersey presentation photo of the Todd clan features in the only post on his newly created Instagram account, while younger brothers Darcy and Steven are relishing the chance to visit Jack now he’s “gone a bit city on them.”
Darcy Todd, Jack’s younger brother, has his older sibling beat when it comes to bull-riding.Credit: Bootface Photography
In between riding bikes, horses and breaking bones, the eldest Todd sibling dabbled with wrangling a “few poddy calves and a steer or two” as a kid.
“But my brothers are mad-keen bull-riders,” Todd says.
“I’ve given it a crack but I’m nothing like those two. I’ve left that to them, and they’re pretty impressive with it all.
“They’re both into me about going ‘a bit city’ now, but they actually love coming down and watching footy.
“Growing up, it was all about footy and sport, and you’d travel a lot of territory for games, just like my brothers travel now for bull-riding.
“[Upper Horton] was an awesome place to grow up on the farm, there’s basically the pub up there, and I reckon that’s what keeps the town going, it’s where everything happens.”
In all likelihood, the returns of Viliame Kikau and Sitili Tupouniua after Canterbury’s round six bye will send Todd back to NSW Cup duties. But the young front-rower is highly rated by coach Cameron Ciraldo and football boss Phil Gould and was earlier this year re-signed until the end of 2026.
For now, the kid from Upper Horton with more broken bones and surgeries than most is chuffed with his first taste of the big time, and a debut try against Newcastle to boot.
“It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. I haven’t scored a try in the last three years, now I’ve got one in the NRL and another in NSW Cup the other day. Can’t complain about getting off the nudie run, always nice to get a front-rower’s try”.
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