Palm Island to host landmark Townsville A Grade rugby league clash with Centrals Tigers

Centrals will honour four decades of friendship with Palm Island by bringing A Grade rugby league back to the island on Saturday, with a push to make the fixture a pemanent calendar addition.

Centrals co-coach Robert Lui with the turtle shell gift presented to the Tigers by the Palm Island community in 1983 after the first QRL sanctioned match on the island. Picture: Evan Morgan

Centrals Tigers will honour four decades of friendship with the Palm Island community by bringing A Grade rugby league back to the island on Saturday.

The Tigers were the first mainland club to play an organised fixture on Palm Island in 1983, when a team led by current club president Kevin Marty flew by plane to take on Palm’s finest footy players.

The club was gifted a decorative turtle shell adorned with illustrations of a tiger and barracuda, which survives today as one of the Tigers’ most enduring symbols of connection with Palm.

On Saturday a new generation of Centrals players will venture to Palm, under the coaching of Robert Lui and Troy Thompson, to rekindle that flame of friendship with a pre-season trial match for its A Grade side.

Adding to the special occasion will be the presence of that 1983 turtle shell, which was recently rediscovered after it was lost during the demolition of the old Townsville Rugby League headquarters in Belgian Gardens.

Bindal Sharks All Blacks Rugby League Carnival 2023. Palm Island Barracudas Green against Walkabouts. Barracudas Quintel Wailu. Picture: Evan Morgan

“When they invited us back we thought how good is this,” Marty said.

“For players like myself who were around in the day, I can still remember the flight looking over the reef coming into the island. We played on the old fields, by the beach. We’ve told the younger fellas what that meant to us and what rugby league means to Palm Island. It is massive.

“They are rugby league mad and for us to have the opportunity to go back and relive 1983 and pay back the Palm community. They are rugby league over there.”

Marty said he would advocate for the trial to become a regular pre-season fixture to honour the connection between the clubs.

“To be able to reignite the association we had in the 1980s and ‘90s would be great, especially for our club with such a great Indigenous population,” he said.

“Three of our junior teams are probably 50 per cent Indigenous and a lot of our players have ties to Palm as well. It is just a great opportunity.”

Centrals were defeated by a single point in 1983 and Marty expected another tightly contested contest 41 years later.

In a busy Saturday of trials, Brothers host Cairns Brothers at 4pm, Western Lions host Wests Mackay at 4.30pm and Burdekin host Mackay Magpies at 5pm.

Souths played Norths in a trial overnight on Friday.

Originally published as Palm Island to host landmark Townsville A Grade rugby league clash with Centrals Tigers