MATT Parcell talks as well off the field as he does on it – but his nearest and dearest almost fell victim to an unlikely language barrier.
The Leeds hooker revealed he did his research about what to expect in terms of accents and sayings before moving from Australian side Manly to Yorkshire.
However, he did not pass his findings on to his girlfriend and it almost had disastrous consequences.
For she found herself thinking someone wanted to fight her, when they were only asking if she was all right!
“The main thing here is people say, ‘Are you all right?’ Back home when people say that, they might be trying to pick a fight with you.
“Here it’s just like, ‘How are you going?’ I was lucky that Mitch Garbutt told me about it before I came but I forgot to pass that on to my girlfriend.
“At my first game, everyone was going up to her and saying, ‘Are you all right?’ She was like, ‘What’s going on? Do I look weird or something?’
“The biggest difference here is how you can travel 20 minutes or half an hour and the accent is very different, back home you’d have to travel for two hours on a plane to notice it.
“Everyone at the club has been very helpful and supportive, though. I knew Mitch from back home and he was really good.
“It’s difficult but you move for a change, so you’ve got to embrace it. My girlfriend has settled in now too, but I think she might be missing the sun more than me.”
Parcell insists he has adapted quickly to life on the other side of the world from his home town of Ipswich, Queensland.
While he seamlessly slotted in to fill the gap left by James Segeyaro’s decision to stay in Australia, he has put in the hours off the field by helping renovate his new house near Leeds’ Headingley ground.
But even though he has established himself as a terrace favourite in just over half a season, he still can see himself heading back to the NRL one day.
“Hopefully, I get the opportunity to go back to the NRL and I feel I could play really well there,” he added.
“The move was more about where I was at to be honest, Manly had a style they wanted to play and it doesn’t matter where you go. I felt that I’d fit in really well coming over here.
“I spoke to some people before I came and they said how I want to play would fit in here and hopefully when we get towards the back end of the year, we can really start to fire.
“Teams here are a bit more open and free in how they play and they play what’s in front of them a lot more.
“Manly wanted to play a certain style and I felt the way I play would be better suited to a team here and we’re still progressing.
“But hopefully I can get the chance to go back home and do it in the NRL as well.”
Parcell, 24, admits the gruelling English schedule – especially the two double header weekends – came as a shock.
But he needs no reminding that he is just two wins from another big piece of English rugby league folklore, the Challenge Cup Final.
Brian McDermott’s men are heavy favourites to reach the semi-finals over Championship side Featherstone tonight.
However, even the ‘new’ boy is aware of the pitfalls after a freezing introduction to Rovers.
He said: “It took some explaining to people at home, especially for the first couple of games, that I wasn’t playing in Super League but the Challenge Cup.
“But it’s a really good thing and I’ve talked to a lot of the players about their Wembley experiences in 2015, to get there would be awesome.
“And we played Featherstone in a trial game before the season, my second game here and it was definitely the coldest night I’ve had so far!”
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