Nerang Bulls to host rugby tens tournament to raise funds for Navar Herbert and his family

NERANG president Heath Claydon has been “blown away” by the Gold Coast rugby community’s generosity in coming together to support prop Navar Herbert.

NERANG president Heath Claydon has been “blown away” by the Gold Coast rugby community’s generosity in coming together to support prop Navar Herbert.

The Bulls will host a ten-a-side tournament to raise funds for Herbert, who has been diagnosed with a brain tumour – more specifically a sarcoma, a malignant cancer.

“It all sort of started about a month or six weeks ago now, he started getting headaches,” Claydon said.

“They took him into hospital and yeah, four o’clock on the Wednesday he could see and 4.20 his vision had gone in one eye and it won’t come back.”

Having begun chemotherapy – surgery is also being considered – the 21-year-old father-of-one is hoped to make a full recovery bar the lost vision in his right eye.

Navar Herbert.

“He has got a bit of a walk to do but yeah the next 12 months will tell,” Claydon said.

A goal of $50,000 has been set to support Herbert and his family – $15,000 of which has already been raised via a GoFundMe page, with more to come from a bumper day of rugby today.

Tweed joined the tens tournament this week to make it 20 teams all up. The first of the 34 10-minute games will be played at 12.30pm, with a $10 donation to Herbert’s cause requested from each player instead of an entry fee.

“The initial diagnosis from the doctor is it will probably take a full 12 months to get over it so as a group we figured $50,000 should get him through because he has also got medical and all the other stuff to pay,” Claydon said.

Navar Herbert as a Bulls junior.

“Navar is Cameron “Bushy” Herbert’s son and he has been around the Coast for eons. The response has been amazing, we have got teams coming from Brisbane and Logan.

“Helensvale have donated all of the hangi stuff. We have had heaps of people donate prizes so we are going to run raffles all day but from a club perspective, any profits will be donated to the family.

“I am blown away with the amount of people who have come out of the woodworks and thrown their support behind this.

“This is why people join clubs, there’s that sense of community. What people have done has been amazing.”

Nerang, who are planning to return to first grade next season, will also dedicate one of their 2019 home fixtures to Herbert.