Striving to honour ‘brother’ at annual Indigenous league carnival
A GROUP of Far North rugby league players will turn pain into passion at the Gordonvale Indigenous Rugby League Carnival.
The Brandon Lee Yeatman Memorial Team are one of 12 sides to contest the twoday tournament at Alley Park, which was cancelled in 2020 due to Covid.
Joel Murgha said the team was put together to honour the life and memory of Yeatman, the 21-year-old Yarrabah resident who passed away earlier this year.
“I’m really excited to get out there,” Murgha said.
“We’ve got a memorial team in for our little brother, Brandon Yeatman, so there’ll be a lot of emotion involved and a lot of excitement. Everyone’s pumped to hurry up and play for him and play for each other.
“We lost Brandon earlier this year to mental health, so a point of putting this team together was just to promote physical and mental wellbeing and to get the boys around each other, to make sure they have somebody to talk to and just come out here and enjoy ourselves.”
Murgha said it would be a stirring victory if the side could pull it off.
“It would be crazy,” he said. “A lot of emotion will be there, you’ll probably see a lot of tears – you’ll probably see that anyway – but everyone will be playing their hearts out and giving it their all for him.”
The action kicks off at 9am on Saturday, with the grand final at 6pm on Sunday.