An NRL player’s Instagram feed is an interesting case study: action shots, animations, family, fun in the sun, media missives, pushing commercial partners, “team first”.
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Ryan Papenhuyzen’s resembles a kid who has spent an hour cleaning his bedroom after being told off by his parents. In a perfectly manicured line down the middle of his grid are a series of tiles, each with black background and white text. They’re motivational readings, self-improvement messages, one from American car king Henry Ford grabs attention.
Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.
“He’s a really deep thinker,” says Storm owner and chairman Matt Tripp, one of the sharpest business minds in the country, having made his fortune through the online gambling boom. “He’s very well read. He craves knowledge. He wants to be learning all the time – and that’s a great attribute.”
We’ve all seen the blazing mullet of Papenhuyzen surging through the middle of the field in support to score another Storm try, but the side of the Melbourne fullback we don’t is the reason he’s one of the most compelling stars in the game. In the words of his manager and former Raiders legend Clint Schifcofske, “he’s not your normal NRL player”.
So, who is the real Ryan Papenhuyzen? And why this year has suddenly it all come together after years of injury torment?
Amongst his neatly organised social media offerings, Papenhuyzen often posts the covers of books he’s reading.
Recently, he tipped Schifcofske into an American author, Ryan Holiday. Holiday is a young marketing disruptor whose original bestseller revealed how he’d manipulated the media by pretending to an expert in certain areas: an insomniac, a vinyl record collector, a customer who had been sneezed over at Burger King, the list goes on. A host of America’s biggest media outlets fell for it. He’s gone on to write many more books about making the most of big business.
But while he has a keen interest in business himself, it was a book Papenhuyzen devoured last year on All Blacks legend Dan Carter which he’s used as a platform to top the NRL try-scoring charts this season.
Storm smash Tigers after Papi hat-trick | 01:17
The Storm’s director of football, Frank Ponissi, organised for Papenhuyzen and halfback Jahrome Hughes to visit Carter just before Christmas. Papenhuyzen made sure he read Carter’s book beforehand, first having a kicking session with New Zealand sporting royalty, and then a round of golf.
“When he got there, he wasn’t suddenly, ‘this is the first time he’s met him’,” Ponissi says. “He’d done a fair bit of reading about him. It was a pretty special day for three blokes like that. Around the golf course they just spoke about leadership. (Papenhuyzen) is such a deep thinker and I know for a fact he went prepared.”
Undoubtedly, Storm coach Craig Bellamy has the best “spine” in the competition, and yet they are all different. Harry Grant is rugged and instinctual, Hughes controlling and with a right foot step to die for, Cameron Munster doesn’t even know what he’s going to do next, but it’s perhaps Papenhuyzen’s intellect which has shone brightest this year.
Last weekend during the record 64-0 drubbing of the Tigers in which Papenhuyzen scored four tries, there was one which maybe spoke loudest.
As desperate Tigers hooker Api Koroisau took a short dropout straight down the middle of the field, Storm winger Xavier Coates came surging in from near the sideline to collect the bouncing ball. The instinct would have been for Papenhuyzen to follow Coates to his right. He stayed right where he was, trailing Coates’ left in the middle of the field, and then receiving the pass to score what looked a simple try.
“As that ball went up and Xavier caught it, you could sense ‘Paps’ had picked up that hole where Koroisau should have been,” Ponissi says. “By the time he got there, he couldn’t lay a glove on him.
“I think that anticipation is a classic example of him nearly reading that play before Xavier has caught the ball. He’s thought, ‘that’s a hooker who has kicked the ball and should be defending in the middle, I’m going to take advantage of that gap’.
“He’s got a really calm and composed temperament. He’s not one of those players who will just rush into something. He sits back, watches, listens and takes it all in. His nature helps his IQ.”
Says Schifcofske: “He thinks outside the square to make himself better. I used to think I was OK in footy IQ, but I sit with him and listen to some of the stuff he talks about and what he’s thinking and what he’s trying to create, it’s insane.”
It’s hard to reconcile Papenhuyzen was the hottest prospect in the game five years ago when he won the Clive Churchill Medal in the Storm’s 2020 grand final win over the Panthers during the COVID-affected season.
Papenhuyzen Inc was big business. He’s still an ambassador for a greyhound adoption program, sits in the boardroom of sports drink company Superboost (he has equity in the organisation), partners with VW and even represents Drummond Golf.
But perhaps it’s only this year on the field he’s truly emerged from the dark clouds of three years of injury hell between 2021 and 2023: a sickening concussion, a shattered kneecap, a snapped ankle crushed under the teammate of Nelson Asofa-Solomona in a finals game.
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“I’ve never seen a player in my time in the game work as hard at getting themselves back to full fitness after the setbacks he’s had,” Tripp says. “Most people would have said, ‘I’m now at the stage where this game isn’t for me’.
“Naturally, when it first happens you wouldn’t be human if you didn’t doubt yourself and ask questions about your tenure in the game and whether it’s all worth it. He didn’t do that, at least not that I saw. He didn’t question himself. That goes to that mental toughness piece.”
It’s almost fashionable now for an NRL player burdened with a long-term injury to visit US-based specialist Bill Knowles. During his most intense struggles, Papenhuyzen sought Knowles’ help. What’s lesser known is he visited Knowles a second time – at his own expense.
“They’ve got a great personal relationship and they’re in contact pretty regularly,” Schifcofske says. “That’s the type of player and person he is. He invests himself, which is almost unheard of these days. Any other player in the comp, hand on heart wouldn’t have got through it.”
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Storm put huge score on the Tigers | 00:52
While Papenhuyzen fought his way out of the fog, others believed in him too. Most notably, Bulldogs supremo Phil Gould.
Late last year, Papenhuyzen inked a 12-month extension to stay at the Storm for 2026. It was a peculiarly short deal for one of the NRL’s most electric players. As he sat down with his manager to mull the Bulldogs interest, Papenhuyzen asked him after his injury torment: “I probably should sign a long-term deal now, shouldn’t I?”
He didn’t. He wanted another crack at the Storm, even if it was for less security.
On Sunday night, Laurie Daley will finalise his NSW Blues squad for the opening State of Origin match.
Daley has given little away about his leanings, but on Thursday described Papenhuyzen as a “mighty player”. No one would begrudge Papenhuyzen if he earns a first Blues jumper, however unlikely with a star-studded cast of NSW No.1 options including Dylan Edwards, James Tedesco, Latrell Mitchell and Tom Trbojevic. He might be a round peg trying to fit in a square hole, but there wouldn’t be a more popular pick given his story.
“Good things happen to good people and that kid deserves everything that comes his way,” Schifcofske says.
