Jordan Pereira’s incredible journey the NRL from schoolies to Samoa via Perth
Jordan Pereira first came to Australia for schoolies and never went home. His journey took him to Perth, Samoa, Townsville and, finally, an NRL berth with the Dragons.
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JORDAN Pereira left New Zealand seven years ago with two grand in his pocket and one goal.
“Schoolies,” he recalls, grinning. “I wanted to spend a few weeks on the Gold Coast for Schoolies … then head straight back home.”
Only one problem.
A couple of weeks into Australia’s most unruly of holidays, this young Wellington teen suddenly realised he’d churned so deep into those savings earned packing Woolworths shelves, he had nothing left to buy a flight home.
“Which sounds bad, I know,” he says. “So, um … maybe we shouldn’t include this in the story.”
Huh?
If ever rugby league needed to hear the yarn behind this unlikeliest of St George Illawarra wingers, it’s now.
Understanding that in 25-year-old Pereira — a kid who crossed the ditch for beers and simply never went home — you have something of an antidote for the ongoing NRL malaise of sex tapes, court appearances and Laurie Daley not wanting his kids at your club.
So who cares if young Jordie burned through a little too much coin on Cavill Avenue?
Five years ago, this same fella had never played rugby league, save for a handful of games in high school.
“And even those were only because I couldn’t get a start in our school’s First XV for rugby,” he says. “Which was pretty bad … we were a small school.”
Worse, so was Pereira. A truth still haunting him as recently as this year’s Charity Shield, when Souths superstar Sam Burgess not only whacked our man about the melon, but then defended his actions by pleading with the referee: “C’mon, he’s five-foot tall.”
“Which was even worse as a kid in New Zealand,” Pereira says. “Playing against 14-year-olds with beards.”
So how the bloody hell does he wind up here, then?
How does Pereira not only find himself on an NRL wing, but part of a Dragons outfit that can genuinely contend for the 2019 premiership?
“Ah, long story,” the flyer says, speaking this particular day in the Wollongong apartment he shares with fiancee Sarah Orange.
“It all started with the Gold Coast. With Schoolies …”
And for an hour, it goes from there — a yarn that sees this 17-year-old, without cash for that return flight, then moving into the rumpus room of close mate Caleb Kingi, whose own family had shifted to Surfers Paradise a few years earlier.
“Just turned up with my bag,” Pereira recalls, “and said, ‘Can I stay?’.”
He did — although only long enough to play a year of park rugby with a local university side — “although I never went to uni myself” — before following a mate to Western Australia and another rugby club that saw enough “to offer a car as part of my deal”.
Then in 2013, this rugby hopeful again grabbed his passport — this time for Samoa, the birthplace of his old man — to trial for a place in their U/20 World Cup squad.
“I was told performing well at a Rugby World Cup was the best way to go professional,” he recalls. “So I lived in Samoa four months, used up all my savings and, eventually, made the team.
“But then four days before we flew out to France, they cut me.
“Apparently New Zealand had culled one of its players late who wasn’t only eligible for Samoa, but played my position, too.”
And as for how you felt?
“Filthy,” he says. “I lost all interest in rugby, felt I just wasn’t good anymore.”
And so, upon jetting back into Australia — this time, with his return flight sponsored by the supplements company where he worked — friends of Pereira suggested a switch to rugby league and the Willagee Bears in Fremantle.
The move, aimed at no more than brightening his mood, would eventually morph into not only a strong season, but a contract with Mackay Cutters, a feeder team for North Queensland.
“Although the year after I joined Mackay, the Cowboys won a premiership,” Pereira says. “So there were good players in front of me.
“Plus, while trying to train, I was also working at a supermarket five days a week.
“I was getting so tired, I started to underperform and the supermarket cut me back to one day.
“So I started working extra days as a labourer, digging holes and carrying heavy stuff, while also starting at a local cafe, making coffees.”
And all this, remember, while only 18 months into the sport.
“So I dropped the ball — a lot,” he said with a laugh. “My fitness wasn’t where it needed to be, either. Instead of doing 20 carries a game, it was six.
“After my second year, they (North Queensland) stopped talking to me.”
Yet while the Cowboys quit talking to Pereira, a young uni student named Sarah started. First time they met for coffee, the pair chatted three hours.
And now come October this year, they’ll be married.
“Sarah’s the one who convinced me to get proactive about my career,” Pereira says. “She said I needed to create a highlight reel and send it out.
“She also made me get a manager to get my name out there.”
And guess what?
Within a week of getting said manager in 2017, St George Illawarra bit. An offer resulted in the pair immediately driving 26 hours to Wollongong, where the winger has since earned nine NRL starts.
“And can you please mention Sarah did a lot of the driving. Apparently whenever I tell this story I forget to mention that …”
And now this Saturday night, the kid who couldn’t get home from Schoolies arrives at his first NRL season opener — ironically, against the Cowboys in Townsville.
The milestone arrives only five days after also extending his contract until the end of 2021.
“So for the first time since high school, I’m waking up knowing where I’m going to be,” Pereira says. “Sarah and I, we’re even looking at buying a house.
“Never in my life could I have imagined doing that.”
Originally published as Jordan Pereira’s incredible journey the NRL from schoolies to Samoa via Perth
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