'Starting from scratch': Luke Lewis embarking on new venture

When you've played more than 300 NRL games, won a pair of premierships and represented both your state and country with distinction, you can pretty much rest assured that there will be a job in rugby league waiting for you when you hang up the boots. 

From coaching to media gigs and paid ambassador roles, there were plenty of jobs Luke Lewis could have eased into when he retired at the end of 2018, and initially he dabbled in a couple of those areas before deciding he owed it to himself to pursue something completely away from his comfort zone. 

“I’d like to be more successful outside of footy than I ever was in rugby league,” Lewis tells NRL.com.

“But what I have learned over the four years that I have been retired is that I am starting from scratch, it’s like being a kid in footy again.

At the moment I feel like I am a young boy again. I’m in a big ocean and I’m a little fish learning to swim.

Luke Lewis

The 39-year-old’s evolution post-footy is hardly surprising when you consider what he achieved in his 18-season NRL career.

After emerging as one of Australia’s most exciting backline talents in the early 2000s and winning a premiership with Penrith, Lewis later transformed into an elite forward who could seamlessly switch from the second row to the middle of the park at club, state and Test level.

Much like that experience as a player, his life after rugby league so far has been about learning on the run and at times throwing himself in the deep end.

“I have done a couple of diplomas including a business diploma, but when you sit in a room with a book it doesn’t really make sense and the only way I found to learn was to go out and do it,” Lewis says.

“It’s been learning on the run and sometimes that means taking three or four steps forward and six steps backwards.

“The good thing about rugby league is that you learn a lot about working in a team, leadership and how to get the best out of the team around you.

“I have built a lot of these relationships over time in rugby league, and you don’t realise it at the time but you build a lot of relationships with people in the corporate world.”

Alongside his friend Mohammed Ali Ayad, Lewis co-founded iDlvr, a personalised delivery service offering same day on-demand delivery through an app. 

Launched this year, Lewis says he was sold on the idea immediately when it was pitched to him, with his role right now focussed on expanding the business and forming new strategic partnerships.

“At the moment if there is a tradie out there on site with a job to finish and they need something, they have to pack up, go into the store, drive back and set up again,” Lewis explains.

“With this we can save them all that. It can be picked up for them and our driver can drop it to them on site.”

Despite his main work being far removed from rugby league, Lewis remains an avid follower of the NRL and attends games throughout the season as an expert commentator on the ABC Grandstand Rugby League crew.

He also helps the New South Wales Rugby League in a less formal talent identification role.   

The career moment I still get asked about...

I still get people today, six years on, who say thank you to me, thank you for helping to deliver a premiership for the Sharks. People want to know what it was like, what the stadium felt like, and I tell them I never played in a more one-sided stadium (in our favour). It was a crazy time when we were going through that Grand Final week.