The promise that turned David Fifita into a Brisbane Broncos superstar
Today, David Fifita is rugby league’s hottest prospect and one of the game’s emerging stars. But it was just five years ago he made a promise to his heartbroken mother that kept his NRL dreams alive.
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It was the desperate plea that broke his mother’s heart – and planted the seed for the birth of a Broncos footballing superstar.
On the surface it all seems so easy for David Fifita. At just 19, he runs on to Cbus Super Stadium in the Indigenous-Maori All Stars clash on the Gold Coast as the NRL’s hottest forward property.
Fifita’s gifts are such that he was the first player born in the 2000s to play NRL. At 18, he was a Queensland State of Origin player.
After one full season of first grade, he has been bombarded with $1 million contracts from rival Sydney clubs.
Factor in the body of Adonis, a rippling 107kg physique that appears carved out of granite, and it’s impossible to believe the Broncos young gun knows the meaning of adversity.
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But Fifita doesn’t just know the meaning of adversity. He has lived it. Endured it. Been steeled by it.
And so, too, has his mother Gwen, a proud, purposeful woman from the Torres Strait who today opens up to The Courier-Mail in one of the NRL’s most inspirational stories.
In three more days, Fifita will bid farewell to his teens, celebrating his 20th birthday this Tuesday.
But five years ago, life was no party. Struggling to put food on the table, Gwen was so poor she told Fifita she was pulling him out of the game he loves.
“A few times I was going to pull the plug on Dave’s football,” says Gwen, a product of tiny Badu Island, population of 813.
“I said to Dave, ‘I’m sorry mate, I can’t do this anymore’. Financially, I can’t afford for you to keep playing.
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“Holding a job down for me was tough. David’s football started to take off and keeping a day job was tough because I was the one driving Dave to train stations and rep camps and training.
“I had to get a night-time job at Woolworths packing shelves and find a babysitter for my two kids (including Fifita’s older brother).
“Dave could see how tough it was on me. I had days where I was depressed.
“The stress and pressure was too much. I remember days where we had no food. Sometimes I didn’t have money for petrol.
“So when Dave was 15, I told him he had to stop playing football.”
A young Fifita, on the cusp of securing his first Broncos scholarship worth a meagre $2500, was gutted. He made a simple vow.
“I will never forget it,” says Gwen, who will attend Friday’s All Stars clash.
“Dave looked at me and said, ‘Mum, please don’t do it. I promise you I won’t let you down. I will give it everything to play NRL’.
“At the moment, I just went, ‘Wow’. I saw this determination and motivation in his eyes and I knew then he wasn’t going to let me down.
“I said, ‘OK, David ... we’re going to do this together’.”
As a package deal, Fifita and Gwen shared a collective strength that helped them navigate any adversity, including the incarceration of the Broncos forward’s father Siaosi.
When Fifita made his Origin debut last year at Suncorp Stadium, Siaosi watched the greatest moment of his son’s NRL career behind bars.
Jailed after being charged with seven offences including possessing dangerous drugs and receiving tainted property, Siaosi applied for bail to be reunited with his son at Origin I at Suncorp Stadium.
The magistrate refused the application. Siaosi was released last December and is now living with Gwen and Fifita in their family home at Redbank Plains.
“We have always been together, we’ve never broken up,” Gwen said.
“Dave’s dad has some mental health issues and fights the demons in his own head.
“Dave’s relationship with his dad is very good. He missed a lot of David’s growing up and he was really hurt to be in jail when Dave played State of Origin because it was such a special night for our family.
“I didn’t visit him in jail. But he’s out now and getting through it with my support.
“I’m a Christian. I believe in God and I believe you have to go through the struggles in life.”
Residing on Struggle Street instilled a sense of discipline for Fifita. The easy option could have been a life of crime. The only road Fifita wanted to take was bound for the NRL.
At age 12, playing at Souths Acacia Ridge, he attracted the attention of Brisbane’s arch rivals the North Queensland Cowboys. Fifita said thanks, but no thanks.
“The Cowboys actually tried to sign him,” Gwen says.
“They were the first club to approach Dave. The Titans came into the picture when he was 14 and then the Broncos showed interest when he was 15.
“He felt the Cowboys (based in Townsville) was too far away. First and foremost he loved the Broncos. He would always say, ‘Mum, I wish the Broncos would choose me’ and I would say, ‘It’s OK mate, they will come for you one day if you keep playing well’.”
Fifita was mapping out a different path. A year after rejecting the Cowboys, he enrolled at prestigious Gold Coast rugby league school Keebra Park because of their knack for turning promising players into NRL stars.
“It was David’s idea,” Gwen recalls. “He did his research and said this is the school for me – they played high quality football.”
Three days a week, Fifita started football training at 6.30am. His alarm would scream at 4am before Gwen dropped him off at Altandi station to catch the 4.57am train in darkness to the Gold Coast.
“He was never late,” Gwen says.
Fifita adds: “Looking back, I think, ‘How did I do that?’, but that is what gave me the drive to get where I am today.”
On Friday, the Broncos sensation finds himself back on the Gold Coast, wearing the Indigenous jumper in honour of the tough-as-nails mum who put every cent into her son.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am,” Gwen says.
“All my efforts and all his sacrifices haven’t got to waste. I stuck by my son and he promised he wouldn’t fail.
“David was right ... we did it together.”
Originally published as The promise that turned David Fifita into a Brisbane Broncos superstar