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Making your NRL debut is a dream come true for any footy player, but when the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs posted a video of debutant Jack Underhill this week, we got a glimpse of a more poignant moment than just an ordinary debut.
Before his first game for the doggies, Underhill spoke to teammates about the tattoo on his torso, just three simple words: “dream, believe, suceed”. The mispelling is deliberate because that’s how his late mum, Renee, wrote it.
Underhill lost his mother to cancer when he was just seven years old. Before she passed away, she wrote him a birthday card, with the same message written at the bottom, to open every year until he turned 21.
“This was the first one that I never got one,” Underhill told teammates in a short clip posted to Instagram.
The tattoo, which matches one his sister also has, keeps the phrase exactly as his mum wrote it.
The clip was widely shared by Bulldogs fans and has now gone viral online, with more than 2 million views on Instagram, and fans praising Underhill for his honesty and vulnerability.
Underhill became Bulldog No. 880 when he ran out at Magic Round, coming off the bench for his first taste of the NRL. After the match, he posted a simple message to social media: “Just a kid with a dream.”
The Queenslander joined Canterbury from the Sunshine Coast and is considered one of the club’s brightest young forwards. He was man of the match in the Bulldogs’ 2024 Jersey Flegg premiership win and is signed with the club until the end of 2028.
For all the noise around an NRL debut, this one came with something quieter sitting underneath it. A young player, a family message and one misspelt word that means exactly what it’s meant to.
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