NRL shutdown: In Isolation with Wests Tigers star Alex Twal

With the COVID-19 pandemic having shut down Australian sport, The Daily Telegraph goes inside the home gyms and makeshift backyard training fields of our most recognised athletes.

Alex Twal isn’t exactly in the good books with his mum right now.

Which is fair enough.

Especially when you hear how only two days back, this Wests Tigers frontrower arrived home with two weight benches, a Watt bike, kettle bells, dumbbells, barbell, medicine balls, resistance bands, even a plyometric box set.

“All of which I’ve packed into the spare room,” he grins.

Which sounds fine, sure.

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Alex Twal poses for a portrait before Wests Tigers training at Concord Oval, Sydney. Picture: Brett Costello

And likely would be too if said spare room of the family home he shares with parents Sam and Sarah wasn’t already decked out with a cot, bouncer and countless piles of baby toys.

“My sister Mez recently had a little boy,” Twal explains.

“So Mum being the devoted grandmother, she’s gone and decked out our spare room for his visits. And he was really starting to enjoy all his toys in there too.”

But then, well, the NRL went into lockdown.

“So my nephew was shifted out,” Uncle Alex laughs, “and I moved in”.

the home gym of Wests Tigers forward Alex Twal

Of all the makeshift NRL gyms currently popping up across Sydney, none boast a backstory quite like that belonging to a fella considered the most effective defender anywhere in rugby league.

Apart from having overhauled nephew Jordan’s playroom, 23-year-old Twal has also taken to running backyard shuttles as the growing COVID-19 pandemic effectively shuts down Australian sport.

None of which will surprise fellow Tigers players though, who to a man describe this Lebanese international as the club’s most diligent trainer.

Same as they will tell you about a whiteboard inside Concord HQ which lists, in detail, what every player has borrowed for the duration of lockdown.

Watt bikes, medicine balls, everything is written out.

With nobody, they say, boasting a list longer than Twal.

Quizzed on whispers he has borrowed more than any other player, the forward now entering his fourth NRL season grins: “Yeah, that’s true. For me, it’s about staying professional.

“Not only maintaining what I’ve already done this year, but improving it.”

Usually when lifting in repetitions of five, Twal will bench 130kg and squat 140kg.

“Although now you have to improvise,” he explains. “Split squats, stuff like that.

“But for me, this isolation period is much bigger than footy.

“It’s about taking this thing seriously, staying positive and helping others where you can.”

So as for talk of players like yourself losing 87 per cent of their wage?

“Right now,” Twal says, “people are losing a lot more that”.

In Isolation with Alex Twal

Which is why every morning before breakfast, coffee or even grabbing his iPhone, this rising Tiger scribbles onto a whiteboard in his bedroom three things to be grateful for.

On Friday, the list read: Good Health, Family, Food.

“But other days it’s been the opportunity to train,” he explains. “Or the chance to better myself.

“Given what a turbulent time it is, this is how I’ve decided to start every day.

“Meditate for few minutes, and write”.

Then from there?

“Then I’m into my nephew’s playroom,” he grins. “And training.”

Originally published as NRL shutdown: In Isolation with Wests Tigers star Alex Twal