“A ute tray fell on me when I was young, mucking around in the shed. It hit me in the face and landed on my leg, broke both [tibia and fibula] bones. I was very young for that one.

“When I was 13 or 14, I fractured my kneecap coming off a motorbike. I landed on my knee and actually broke it at the top where the ACL joins onto the knee. I had surgery and a few pins in there that were taken out.

“Most of the other breaks and injuries were from footy, the two arm breaks got me last year, but it’s good to be back playing.”

Todd celebrated his NRL debut against Cronulla with a small army of family and friends. Wearing his dad’s Akubra hat in the Bulldogs dressing sheds after the game completed the night.

A jersey presentation photo of the Todd clan features in the only post on his newly created Instagram account, while younger brothers Darcy and Steven are relishing the chance to visit Jack now he’s “gone a bit city on them”.

In between riding bikes, horses and breaking bones, the eldest Todd sibling dabbled with wrangling a “few poddy calves and a steer or two” as a kid.

“But my brothers are mad-keen bull-riders,” Todd says.

“I’ve given it a crack but I’m nothing like those two. I’ve left that to them, and they’re pretty impressive with it all.

Loading

“They’re both into me about going ‘a bit city’ now, but they actually love coming down and watching footy.

“Growing up, it was all about footy and sport, and you’d travel a lot of territory for games, just like my brothers travel now for bull-riding.

“[Upper Horton] was an awesome place to grow up on the farm, there’s basically the pub up there, and I reckon that’s what keeps the town going, it’s where everything happens.”

In all likelihood, the returns of Viliame Kikau and Sitili Tupouniua after Canterbury’s round six bye will send Todd back to NSW Cup duties. But the young front-rower is highly rated by coach Cameron Ciraldo and football boss Phil Gould and was this year re-signed until the end of 2026.

For now, the kid from Upper Horton with more broken bones and surgeries than most is chuffed with his first taste of the big time, and a debut try against Newcastle to boot.

“It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. I haven’t scored a try in the last three years, now I’ve got one in the NRL and another in NSW Cup the other day. Can’t complain about getting off the nudie run – always nice to get a front-rower’s try”.

Michael Chammas and Andrew “Joey” Johns dissect the upcoming NRL round, plus the latest footy news, results and analysis. Sign up for the Sin Bin newsletter.