Brisbane Broncos recruit Te Maire Martin discusses his brain bleed, his feral gap year and his return to rugby league

Then a year going slowly mad in the cabin of a bulldozer.

A small brain bleed picked up by scans in April 2019 had taken footy away from him. So after staring at the walls and shifting sand, the one-time Kiwi prodigy just did what he wanted.

“I went pig hunting, I surfed, I went fishing and diving,” Martin laughs. “I’ve heard of worse gap years.”

Martin’s recovery from what he and the rest of rugby league feared was a career-ending head injury has surprised plenty. The 26-year-old’s penchant for charging headlong into the New Zealand scrub in pursuit of 90-kilogram wild pigs raises an eyebrow or two as well.

A prodigious playmaker with silk spun skills and looks to match, Martin is nonetheless a country Kiwi kid with a slightly feral heart, hailing from Taharoa, population 170-odd on New Zealand’s west coast.

When his NRL career was put on ice by the scans, headaches and “rushes of blood” that left specialists lost for answers, he went back to what he knows best and loves most.

“I was working my first year out of the game and was driving heavy machines – bulldozers and diggers – in a sand mine at home,” he says. “Twelve hours a day in a digger was good for my recovery because I was sitting still but, man, it sent me mental.

“So I took last year off and got back into pig hunting. I’ve been doing it since I can remember, Dad got me into it at a very young age.

“You can put proper study into it. You don’t just charge into the bush, you know what’s going on with the weather, what time of year it is, you can track a particular pig for days, weeks at a time. Some people will chase a certain family or certain animal for years.”

Having put so much into an NRL career that took him across the ditch as a teenager, to a 2017 grand final appearance and Test honours for New Zealand, Martin kept wondering if footy was truly beyond him.

Those were, of course, the doctor’s orders in early 2019, when Martin first reported suffering headaches and scans revealed a haemorrhage.

“I was asking how long I’d be out for when it first happened and if I’d be right for the next game,” he says.

“The doctor, though, he goes, ‘You’ll probably be out for the rest of the year,’ and that first month or so when it really kicked off was rough. I was just locked in my room that entire time. No light, no TV, because if I saw lights it sent me off with really bad headaches. I was on painkillers to start with for a month.

“My parents came over and they‘d cook for me, bring a meal to my room and have to leave me alone. It was a pretty long month but it got better after a while and I was able to properly start the procedures, getting scans and seeing specialists.”

As Martin’s headaches eased, frustrations grew. A specific head knock couldn’t be found, a reason for the haemorrhage unable to be pinpointed, clouding recovery plans and an uncertain future. In any case, the only way his brain could truly heal was with time. Coming off-contract at the Cowboys in 2019, Martin simply didn’t have it, and couldn’t get clearance to participate in contact training.

When he announced his retirement in early 2020, it was because he couldn’t see himself playing footy again, even when the doctors told him it was still his decision.

“A whole year of doing nothing, for me, that was pretty daunting and took a lot out of me,” he says. “So eventually I didn’t think about playing at all, because I just couldn’t, there was no chance of it.”

So Martin made his peace with it, moved home, sat himself in a digger and shifted sand. And because it couldn’t be avoided when, “Mum’s the physio, Dad’s the team manager, my brothers play and my cousin and uncle are the coaches”, he hung around his family’s local footy team – Otorohanga’s B team in Waikato’s rugby scene.

“I was hanging around at training and I’d been pretty good, so I thought I might as well try a bit of tackling,” Martin says. “I was nervous for sure, it didn’t happen overnight. But training was where I worked it all out, I knew I could do contact from those training sessions.”

Soon enough, he was able to take the field alongside his older brothers, Jesse and Haami, a first for the siblings. Given the close quarters of bush footy, that first shot Martin wore, he knew about it.

“There were a few cheap shots,” he laughs.

“A few niggles on the ground sure, I‘m from a pretty small place and everyone knows everyone, so it was basically my mates testing me out, making sure I could still handle the dirty stuff. They sorted me out all right, I was able to get up after a head rub or a heavy tackle and I was sweet.

“So I started looking into it further and got a few more scans to make sure I was absolutely safe. The specialists kept giving me the green light every time I went and got a scan so I ended up giving my manager Andrew [Purcell] a call and he got the ball rolling with the Broncos.”

On the same weekend his former Penrith halves partner Nathan Cleary was claiming a premiership and Clive Churchill medal against South Sydney, Martin stepped out for his own return to representative rugby league.

He could’ve had a hat-trick on debut for Waikato Mana last October, but gifted a gimme try to a teammate under the posts instead late in a thrashing of Wellington.

Which says a bit about a man who is back from the brink, with his priorities in order; enjoying his lot in life and footy.

Both Brisbane and Martin are circumspect about what 2022 holds.

Predictions are already being cast about potentially partnering Adam Reynolds at the scrumbase, but he has spent two-and-a-half years out of the game, and will take time to get back up to speed. Most importantly, he is at no greater risk of any head injury than anyone else on the paddock.

“I’m not worried about falling short or not making it back to NRL,” he says.

“It might sound weird but I just feel good about where everything‘s at, that hasn’t really crossed my mind.

“It’s a development contract I’m on for a reason, I’m trying to get those things right I need to in my footy, I know it doesn’t happen overnight.

“Watching from the sidelines for two years, when it gets taken away from you, you look back and think ‘I should’ve done this better, I should’ve done that better’.

“But it’s probably a blessing in disguise that footy did get taken away from me. Because whatever happens, if I’m playing Q Cup or training with the NRL squad, I’m not going to leave anything behind. I’ve known what it’s like to think ‘I’m finished’.

“When it’s taken away from you, you realise how much you enjoy it.”

Right now, Martin is right back where he wants to be.

And he’s happy as a pig in the proverbial.