Penrith wingers Brian To’o’s pre-match routine involves kung fu moves

There might not be another player in world sport who prepares for a game like Brian To’o. The young Panther gets ready to play by undergoing a full Bruce Lee routine.

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Brian To’o used to punch into an old weights bench because, put simply, there was nothing else.

He was nine. Maybe 10.

A kid fuelled on Bruce Lee movies and wanting to enrol in karate, taekwondo, anything.

Problem was, his Mt Druitt family barely had enough money for food.

“So when I asked Mum about starting martial arts,” the Penrith winger recalls, “she said no, we couldn't afford it.”

Which is when the old man took his boy into the backyard.

“We had this old bench press machine,” To’o says. “It was broken but Dad, he lifted part of it up that was padded and said ‘OK, punch that’. So I did.”

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To’o practised his moves on an old bench press. Picture by Dylan Robinson.

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And from there?

Well, earlier this week video emerged showing To’o going all Monkey Magic as, while preparing for a game in the Panthers’ sheds, he threw an array of kicks, punches and blocks against his locker.

“But my entire childhood was based around martial arts movies,” the winger cackles when asked to explain. “I'd always be watching Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li … watching their same movies over and over and over.

“There was this one in particular, Young Dragons.

“I watched it so many times as a kid.

To’o warms up by throwing all kinds of kicks and punches.

“Then I'd get out into the backyard, breaking sticks and punching into that bench press machine.

“It's where I get my will to try stuff from.”

And as for those acrobatic NRL tries which, overnight, have become something of his signature?

“When I was 13, my aunty gave us kids a trampoline for Christmas,” he recalls. “Best present ever.

“I was on that thing 24/7. Front flips, backflips, fly kicks, twisting around, even pretending to score tries.

“So then, I just transferred it to footy. I guess that's how I'm able to fly in the air.”

Originally published as Penrith wingers Brian To’o’s pre-match routine involves kung fu moves