Sharks veteran Luke Lewis, with his four-month-old daughter Hazel Nicola, says that “you never even think about what being a father means until, suddenly, you become one”. Picture: Justin Lloyd

“It was March,’’ the Cronulla forward recalls. “A fortnight before Sonia, my wife, was due with our first child. Until that point, I’d been so excited by the pregnancy. So upbeat.

“But then I woke one morning thinking, ‘Holy shit, how can I do this? How can I be a good dad? Do I even know? There were so many questions I was asking myself.”

And the most worrying of these, he took to his wife. “Oh, Luke was really doubting things,’’ Sonia recalls. “He came to me one morning saying, ‘How can I do this?’ He was asking how he could be a good dad without having had one himself.”

How can I be a father without having known my own? Listen closely, and you can hear this question being whispered right throughout the National Rugby League.

Asked in varying degrees by superstars like Andrew Fifita, James Roberts and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, Blake Ferguson, Jordan McLean, even Fox Sports commentator Braith Anasta.

The NRL stork has been busy recently. Yet in 2016, his tale comes with a twist. For, yes, yes, we know the story of football and fatherhood is well told.

Sharks veteran Luke Lewis, with his four-month-old daughter Hazel Nicola, doubted his ability to be a father without having known his own. Picture: Justin LloydSource:News Corp Australia

Countless newspaper inches devoted to Player X, who, posed up with his new bundle of joy, explains how the training, the losses, even the broken bones, none of it pains him any more.

Which is still true enough, sure. But now, the storyline is changing.

Specifically, with a swelling of NRL fathers who were raised without one. And so we come back to that question plaguing Lewis on the eve of daughter Hazel’s birth.

“Which is an important one,” says Anasta, the new father who tragically lost his own dad, Peter, to suicide. “Interesting, too. Especially when you consider us footballers raised by single mums; we’ve been trying to step up, looking to become the man of the house, for much of our lives.”

Indeed, while the NRL boasts no research on this topic, it is becoming increasingly apparent that players raised in single-parent homes — or more specifically, by mum — are now as common in league as tries, tattoos and top knots.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, single parents comprise 15 per cent of all Aussie families.

But in the NRL? Well, some teams double the national average.

And for proof, we present the NSW Origin side, an outfit which, for the opening game of this year’s series, had six players fitting the bill. Over the past three years, a dozen.

It’s a staggering hit list which, apart from superstars like Jarryd Hayne, Aaron Woods and the Morris twins, also includes new fathers like Greg Bird, Ferguson, Fifita and Lewis.

Men who, importantly, have already proved society wrong. For the internet is overflowing with countless studies suggesting sons of single mothers are more likely to grow up obese, unmotivated and in poverty, indulging in criminality and drugs before disappearing on their own children, too.

But then you hear how Roosters enforcer Jared Waerea-Hargreaves is learning to braid hair. How sitting in his lounge room each evening, and with one-year-old daughter Zahli playing on the floor, he takes a brush to fiancee Chelsea Cormack in practice.

Roosters Jared Waerea-Hargreaves, with baby daughter Zahli, 1, is throwing himself into Jimbaroo and baby swim classes. Picture: Justin LloydSource:News Corp Australia

Same as this tattooed 27-year-old is throwing himself into Jimbaroo and baby swim classes. He’s chief co-ordinator, too, of a Roosters Daddy Daycare app used by teammates like Sam Moa, Aidan Guerra and Ferguson.

“And to see some of the gooey stuff we write on there, honestly, you wouldn’t believe we’re footballers,’’ the Bondi firebrand cackles. “But for me, it’s what being a dad is about.

“Like when I’m changing nappies, I’ve got a ‘three wipes challenge’. If it takes any more than that to get the job done, yeah, I’m filthy.”

And so another cycle breaks.

For while he now shares a strong relationship with his own father Wayne — a former UN peacekeeper who worked in warring hot spots like Cambodia, Somalia and Iraq — Waerea-Hargreaves went until the age of nine without knowing him. And so every night, he practises those braids. “Because whether it’s needing pigtails, a lift home, whatever, I want to be there,’’ he says. “As a father, I want to be there every time my daughter needs me.”

So what influence, or otherwise, is the NRL having on all this? Remembering that Willie Mason, arguably the most recognised player of the modern era, traversed five clubs, 15 years and almost 300 games without ever finding someone to step up for his own dad Ian, whom he lost to cancer as a teen.

Sitting in a small, northern beaches cafe last year, I asked Mason if rugby league had provided the father figure he seemed so often to be seeking.

“No,’’ he replied. “For me, it was sink or swim. And, yes, I swam. But Dad was gone, my brother was in jail ... I felt alone.”

While the NRL currently has no courses or research dedicated to parenting or fatherhood, officials quickly point to the connection already under way between players and a host of their ambassadors, like Dave Peachey, Joe Galuvao and Petero Civoniceva.

Apart from contributing $6 million to education and welfare this year, the NRL also work closely with clubs where father figures are as varied as Eels chaplain George Dansey, Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy and 2005 premiership winner Shane Elford, employed by Penrith to oversee Panther House — a share -accommodation facility for young players.

Up in Brisbane, star centre James Roberts continues fighting his various battles with the help of uncle Jeremy Donovan, also now his manager, while fullback Darius Boyd has famously shadowed coach Wayne Bennett through 10 years and four club switches.

Braith Anasta, says that caring for his daughter Aleeia, 2, is “a wonderful swirl of Wiggles songs, dance class participation and days where you’ll catch yourself skipping down the street”. Picture: Tim Hunter.Source:News Corp Australia

“And young footballers, they need to find someone,” says Anasta, who retains strong bonds with several mentors, including Roosters chairman Nick Politis. “Because going through your life without a dad, it’s a huge piece of the puzzle you’re missing.”

Despite splitting from wife Jodi last December, Anasta still cares for their two-year-old daughter Aleeia five days a week. It’s a wonderful swirl, he says, of Wiggles songs, dance class participation and “days where you’ll catch yourself skipping down the street’’.

“Because from tragedy, you learn a lot,’’ he insists. “Yes, missing a father at crucial times in your life is hardly ideal. But it also shapes who you are. Shapes you as a person, a father, all of it.”

Lewis agrees adding: “We love what our mums did for us because, really, they did everything.

“Mum gets you through school, mum gets you to the footy and mum dishes out the discipline. You never even think about what being a father means until, suddenly, you become one.”

And then, well, cycles break.

Like with Roberts, the 2016 indigenous Allstar who recently explained to NRL.com how, with his own dad imprisoned throughout much of his own troubled childhood, he now wants to give baby son Kirk “everything I never had ... and always be there for him”.

Over at the Roosters, Ferguson too speaks of “changing the cycle” for son Harlo, now eight months. “And I’m learning on the run,’’ the Kangaroo winger told us recently. “Certainly becoming a father has changed the way I approach things. I’m not here to arse around anymore. I’ve been given a talent and I’m trying to make something of that. For me, the past is the past.”

Sitting at home in the Shire, daughter Hazel on his knee, Lewis agrees. “Growing up without a dad, it hasn’t made me angry or upset,’’ he shrugs. “I’ve always believed everything happens for a reason. And if things were different, maybe I’d be different. And I wouldn’t want that.

“Right now, I reckon I’m a fairly lucky guy.”