Cowboys centre Brent Tate wants to make Townsville home for good
JOSH ALSTON Townsville Bulletin September 06, 2014 7:45AM
HIS playing days may be done, but former Cowboy Brent Tate is still completely at home on the range.
In a candid interview with the Townsville Bulletin, the rugby league superstar revealed he has no plans on leaving Townsville despite his contractual commitments being over at the Cowboys.
Tate will go down in history as one of the greatest centres to ever pull on a jersey, with a decorated career that included 23 appearances for the Queensland Maroons and 26 international appearances for the Kangaroos.
He will also be remembered as one of the braves, coming back from neck injuries that threatened to derail his career in 2004, a broken jaw, broken shoulder and knees that broke down three times.
Eventually, though, it caught up with him and his fourth serious knee injury, during Origin II this year, would be his last game of top-flight footy. So what next for Tate?
Born in Roma, groomed for the NRL in Redcliffe, debuting in Brisbane, playing in New Zealand and his final years in North Queensland meant that Tate never really had a place to call home. But he reckons he has found that in Townsville.
“It’s funny when you’re travelling around, I don’t know where home is,” he said.
“But when I land here when we come away from Sydney or whereever I come from I know I’m landing back at home (in Townsville). It’s just our home.
“I think coming up here, that community feel, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place that’s as unique as here.
“That word ‘community’, up here that’s what it really feels like. My young son goes to Hermit Park and my daughter goes to a daycare here, my wife has got a good job here, it has become home for us.
“We’re really happy here and at this stage there would be no reason to move.”
So Tate will prepare for the next phase of his life, trading strapping tape and footy boots for business suits and ties.
“There’s a part of me that is really apprehensive, really nervous,” he said.
“But there is also a part of me that is excited about what’s next. I’ve been doing this my whole life and I’m ready to throw myself into something other than footy.
“It will definitely be in the corporate stuff, that’s the sort of stuff I really enjoy.”
The representative arrived in Townsville in 2011, his knee shattered and his career at the crossroads.
He admitted he was ready to give it up then and there, quit footy and never make his North Queensland debut.
Thankfully, the heavyweights running the club gave him a reason to continue.
“I was 100 per cent going to finish when I did my third knee,” Tate said.
“It was obviously a real big disappointment but the great thing for me was I had guys like Neil Henry and Peter Parr and the whole club (behind me). Every time I spoke to those guys their support for me was unwavering.
“I reckon if I had have sensed in their voice just a little bit of doubt, I reckon I would have finished. At that stage I was looking for an excuse to finish. “Every time I spoke to Parrie and Neil, in particular, I never once didn’t believe what they were telling me. They were telling me, ‘just get your rehab and come back and play’.
“For me it was such a bigger deal than that but that was it and the reality of it.
“I started to believe them, I started to believe in myself and the rest is history.”
Now Tate wants to tap into the knowledge of those same heavyweights.
“We’ve got Lawrence (Lancini), Peter Jourdain, Peter Parr, Paul Green,” he said. “I don’t know what to say about those guys, the care that they’ve shown for their players, the club, as a player you understand that and you feel it.
“All those guys are very successful in their own right.
“We’ve got the Stockmen at the club too that are obviously a bunch of men that are very successful.
“I’m sure over the next couple of years I will be leaning on those guys as well just to learn.
“That’s what it’s about for me over the next couple of years, learning as much as I can.”
Source:
townsvillebulletin.com
