How Wests Tigers veteran Alex Twal defied the odds to transform his NRL career

What talk there used to be around Alex Twal was always about what he didn't do.

The Wests Tigers forward has always been reliable. Solid. Redoubtable, even. Since the day he debuted with the Tigers in the NRL back in 2017 he's made his tackles and trucked the ball up with a minimum of fuss.

There was nothing complicated about how Twal went about it. If he was talked about at all it was because of his lengthy try-scoring drought which, as time went on, we all had a lot of fun with it.

It became an easy meme to use as social media fodder. Betting companies ran promos and television types joked about it constantly.

It turned him into a cult hero and right to the time he finally did score in his 116th NRL match in 2023, Twal always took it in good humour. It was the only way he could take it.

That was almost three years ago now, and Twal is very much in the veteran class. He's the Tigers longest-serving player and cracked the top 10 for all-time appearances at the club and against all odds, 10 seasons and 170 games into his career, he has totally transformed.

At an age where the cake is already baked for most players, the 29-year old Twal has reinvented himself to play the best football of his life as part of the joint venture's brilliant start to the year.

Through six weeks, Twal has played like a machine. He's averaging career highs per game in runs, run metres, tackle busts, offloads and tackles with a run of form as good as any lock in the competition.

He's still trucking it up, working hard and doing all the things he's always done but the scale of the improvement is astonishing. His average run metres are up from 81 per game two years ago to 120 this season.

But he's not just doing the old things better than ever. He's become so much more.

Against Newcastle at Campbelltown on Sunday, he got a standing ovation from the fans as he left the field late in the game and he deserved it — only to race back on the field a few minutes later because there was more work to be done.

In the end, he played 77 minutes and finished with 19 runs for 182 metres, his highest total for any game at lock, to go three tackle busts and 42 tackles with just one miss.

He also showed his increased subtlety with two offloads and eight passes that created space or one-on-one match for the rest of the Tigers forwards, who have emerged as the NRL's newest blunt-force artists.

He still isn't scoring tries but nobody cares because nobody's laughing anymore. There's no more talk about what Twal doesn't do, and nor should there ever be because now he does so much. He is living proof it's never too late to change.

It was a process that began last year before fully blossoming this season, and Twal puts much of it down to current coach and former teammate Benji Marshall.

"Benji's put a lot of belief in me and I'm the type of player who just wants to repay that belief and trust," Twal said.

"He was good as both [teammate and coach]. Sometimes, when my arse would be hanging out in those early days, he would chuck a 30-metre cut out pass and hit the winger on the chest and it was a good feeling. But he's doing an awesome job as a coach.

"You have a coach who puts belief in you and I knew if I put my head down, worked hard and ticked my boxes I could build my game.

"I still think I have a lot left in me. There's still elements of my game that can get better."

There's a greater sophistication to Twal's game this season, one which goes beyond running harder, playing longer and tackling well.

He's thrown 12 offloads in six games this season, which is as many as he threw in 72 games from 2019 to 2022.

A few weeks back, against the Warriors, he set up a line break for Jahream Bula with a back-handed flick pass Marshall himself would have been proud to call his own.

The value of his pre-line passing is harder to quantify through numbers but watch any Tigers game this year and it's unmistakable.

That skill improvement has marked Twal's transition from a prop to a true lock forward and it's come about through sheer force of will because Twal is the kind of guy who never met a problem hard work couldn't solve.

"Coming through it [skill] was a bigger element of my game, but I work hard on it at every session. If I work hard, good things will come off the back of it," Twal said.

"I'll keep trying to lead the boys the best way I can and that's working hard and leading by example at training, then come out in the game and do my best."

This success, for Twal and the Tigers, is as hard-earned as it is long-coming.

Before Sunday, he was the only player on the roster who'd won three matches in a row for the joint venture and he has been there for so many false dawns and fresh starts on long roads to nowhere.

But just as Twal has never been a player like this before he has never been on a team like this, with an equal share of the competition lead six weeks into the season.

A win over injury-hit Brisbane on Saturday, again at Campbelltown, would give the Tigers their fourth straight win for the first time since 2012 and their chances of securing their first finals berth in 15 years feels more real every day.

After years of being the NRL's patron saints of lost causes, perhaps they have found the road to the promised land at last and all Twal wants, all he's ever wanted, is to help take them there.

Twal's a hero there now, never mind the cult aspect, and as far as he sees it, after all the faith the Tigers fans showed in the hard times, he owes them.

"Tigers fans have always been good to me, even during the dark days, even when we didn't haven't got the results," Twal said.

"They've always been good to me and I appreciate them so much.

"I've been at this club my whole life and I'm looking forward to keep building on our performances, getting more wins and good times."

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