Brooke Anderson wears her heart on her sleeve, goes onto the field to “kill people” – not literally, she assures us – and throws tantrums she can only laugh about now.
To understand the vibrant Eels No.9, who struggles to wipe a smile off her face during NRLW grand final week, we need to start with the latter.
“I got whacked in the face [during a club game]; I chucked the boots off and had a tantrum,” she says. “It’s the way I react because I always think the worst.”
She immediately feared a facial fracture that, the 26-year-old thought, would make her rugby league return short-lived, maybe even a waste of time.
“The first reaction is just panic, because I just think it’s going to be the worst thing ever,” Anderson says. “It ended up being nothing.”
But take a moment to appreciate the Eels hooker’s unlikely rise to a decider against Newcastle at Accor Stadium on Sunday, and you’ll understand the reaction.
Brooke Anderson’s stirring comeback has helped the Eels to an NRLW grand final appearance.Credit:Brook Mitchell
The former rugby sevens prodigy was in Australia’s elite program straight out of school, but her career on the world circuit was derailed by knee surgery, two shoulder reconstructions and a torn Achilles.
It was enough for Anderson to walk away at 21 and find work driving forklifts on a construction site.
“If you asked me at the same time last year, I would have laughed about going back to play footy,” she says.
“I played sevens out of school for four years. My first one [injury] was an ACL. I’ve had recos on two shoulders, Achilles, anything you can think of, I’ve done. I wasn’t enjoying it any more. I thought that was it.
“Everyone was travelling. I’d get back to another tournament and then I’d get hurt again. It was just a cycle. It was just disappointing. You’d get to a level, and you’d finally reach that potential again, and then something else happens and you start all over again. I got sick of it after a while.
“I thought I’d be done with sport, and I was for a while.”
But then Anderson started turning up to watch her close friend Tiana Penitani play for the Eels earlier this year, and she began to wonder. Maybe there was more to life than working at a job site six days a week, maybe “the spark was still there”.
Penitani had spent years trying to coax Anderson out of retirement, confident she had something more to give to sport after shining on the sevens circuit from her teenage years. Finally, the Brighton Seagulls junior relented, arriving at a Cronulla training session ahead of the NSWRL premiership season.
Seven years on, Tiana Penitani, Brooke Walker and Brooke Anderson are together again.Credit:Edwina Pickles
The Sharks charged to a grand final appearance before Parramatta came calling. Retirement consigned to the memory bank, Anderson now finds herself starting an NRLW grand final for an Eels side desperate to cap an unlikely fairytale.
Parramatta were $151 outsiders to win the premiership heading into the final round of the regular season after a winless opening month. Victory over Brisbane meant they snuck into the four, and a seismic upset over the Sydney Roosters in the semi-final ensured the balance of power shifted once more in a rapidly growing competition.
“I’ve always been whispering in her ear, like, ‘Come on, you’ve still got a little bit left’,” Penitani says.
“I’ve always known Brookie has had a lot left in her with footy, and she has had a tough road in the past; let’s say, eight years with injury and niggles that have got in her way at the elite level.
“To see her find her feet in rugby league and really make a statement in her first year, I’m super proud, not only as a teammate but as one of her closest friends.
“I know she’s got a lot more in her; she’s a rookie in this. It’s exciting what she is producing in her first year of rugby league. It’s only now that she has really clicked and the penny has dropped for her. There’s a lot more she has got left in her.”
Penitani and Anderson have known each other since they were 13. They were in Australia’s sevens system together and went through gruelling rehabilitation phases side by side.
Now they have played major roles for an Eels outfit on the verge of premiership success. Parramatta fans have waited 36 years for their club to reach the summit again, and they could see them lift two trophies within hours of each other.
Anderson knows she will be in the firing line against a rampaging Newcastle pack inspired by Dally M props of the year Millie Boyle and Caitlan Johnston.
Boyle stands 29 centimetres taller than Anderson. Johnston, an even 20. But they can send all the traffic they want at the Eels hooker, because not even a chequered relationship with injuries is enough for her to back down from a prop charging off the back fence.
“I love it,” she says. “The contact is my favourite part of the game; it’s the best thing ever. I read something on [injured Knights back-rower] Hannah Southwell – I used to play with her at sevens – and she was saying she goes out there to rip people’s heads off. That’s the mentality I love.
“You just get out there and you’re pretty much out there to kill people … not literally. To do it with mates, it’s the fun part of the sport.”
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