It’s the feel-good story of the season: Te Maire Martin, fresh off returning to the NRL after a health scare forced him out of the game, is in line for a Broncos extension that would see him stay at Red Hill for years to come.
Martin was forced out of the game in mid-2019 after doctors found a small bleed on the brain. Specialists ruled he should no longer play contact sport and the 26-year-old, then playing for the North Queensland Cowboys, looked to have been pushed into early retirement.
Two and a half years later, is staging a comeback every footy fan can love.
And the story keeps getting better.
According to Seven’s Katie Brown, the Tokoroa-born star is in line for a multi-year deal with the Brisbane Broncos. Kevin Walters has “expressed interesting in retaining the fullback,” Brown writes, and the club is now preparing an early offer to keep the star.
Details like money and exact length of the deal are yet to be stamped, The Sporting Base understands.
Martin has played just two games for the Broncos at fullback, but his impact has been instant. Brisbane started the year with options like Jamayne Isaako, Selwyn Cobbo, and Tesi Niu all vying for the number one jersey, but Martin appears to have won the race.
In his first game back in the NRL, the five-eighth-come-number one racked up six tackle breaks and 50 post-contact metres as he led the Broncos to a 20-point win over the Bulldogs.
A week later, he was at the heart of the team’s gritty 16–7 win over form-side the Sharks.
Martin played much of his early NRL career in the number six jersey, before swapping into the backline for the Cowboys in round 3 in 2019. The change was going well until the discovery of his small brain bleed in May, which slammed the brakes on the rising star that had been Te Maire in North Queensland up until that heartbreaking point.
Thankfully, the wheels have now started turning again in Red Hill.
Brisbane’s head of football, Ben Ikin, has nothing but praise for the star: “It’s great to see Te Maire back in the NRL. Prior to his injury, he was one hell of a player. Hugely skillful and a dangerous ball runner.”
