Jharal Yow Yeh (born 22 December 1989) is an Australian radio presenter and former professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

footballer who played for the

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Red Hill, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos compete in the National Rugby League (NRL) and play their home games at ...

in the

NRL The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

. An Australian international and Queensland State of Origin representative or , he also played for the Indigenous All Stars. Yow Yeh spent his entire club career with the Broncos, which was cut short due to a bad leg break and complications.

Background

Yow Yeh was born in

Brisbane, Queensland Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, to Rhonda Yow Yeh; Yow Yeh is an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

of the Margany tribe and is also of part

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

and

Ni-Vanuatu Ni-Vanuatu (informally abbreviated Ni-Van) is a large group of closely related Melanesians, Melanesian ethnic groups native to the island country of Vanuatu. As such, ''ni-Vanuatu'' are a mixed ethnolinguistic group with a shared ethnogenesis tha ...

descent. His surname is

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

; his great-great-grandfather was Chinese and lived in

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

. Yow Yeh is related to former

Balmain Tigers The Balmain Tigers (also known as the Sydney Tigers from 1995 to 1996) are a rugby league club based in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Balmain, New South Wales, Balmain. They were a founding member of the New South Wales Rugby League and on ...

player Kevin Yow Yeh, who died before Jharal was born. While Kevin Yow Yeh has often been reported as Jharal's great-uncle, he was actually Jharal's grandfather's first cousin; the family describes their relationship as "third cousins". Yow Yeh attended

Ferny Grove State High School Ferny Grove State High School is a public secondary school in the suburb of Ferny Grove, in Brisbane, Australia. The school has a total enrolment of more than 1900 students, with an official count of 1961 students in 2023. In 2007, the school w ...

, where he finished his senior education in 2006. In 2007, Yow Yeh was in The

Parramatta Eels The Parramatta Eels are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta that competes in the National Rugby League (NRL). The Parramatta District Rugby League Football Club was formed in 1947, and ...

junior system and played there for one season but then had his scholarship torn up and was told by then Parramatta recruitment chief

Rod Reddy Rod Reddy (born 1 March 1954) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer and coach. With the nickname ‘’’Rocket’’’ he played in the NSWRL Premiership for the St. George Dragons between 1972 and 1983 and the Illaw ...

that he would never make first grade and would not be able to cut it. When reflecting back on the moment he was told the news Yow Yeh said "Parramatta told me that I wouldn't be able to cut it and I thought that was it, I had no idea what I was going to do". After graduating from school Yow Yeh played junior football for West Arana Hills and

Norths Devils The Northern Suburbs Devils, or North Brisbane Devils, or often simply referred to as Norths for short, are a rugby league club representing the northern suburbs of Brisbane, Australia. The team colours are sky blue, navy blue and gold. They pl ...

. He played in the Under-20s for the

and was named in the 2008 National Youth Competition's team of the year.

Playing career

Yow Yeh made his

National Rugby League The National Rugby League (also known as the NRL Telstra Premiership for sponsorship reasons) is a professional rugby league competition in Oceania which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria (state), Victoria, the Austral ...

debut for the

Suncorp Stadium Brisbane Stadium (Lang Park), currently known as Suncorp Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is a multi-purpose stadium in the suburb of Milton, Queensland, Milton, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Nicknamed The Cauldron, it is a three-tiered rect ...

in the

2009 NRL season The 2009 NRL season was the 102nd season of professional rugby league football club competition in Australia, and the twelfth run by the National Rugby League. For the third consecutive year, sixteen teams competed for the 2009 Telstra Premiersh ...

's Round 1 clash with the

North Queensland Cowboys The North Queensland Cowboys is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Townsville, the largest city in North Queensland. They compete in Australia's premier rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL). Sinc ...

. Yow Yeh was named to the Indigenous All Stars team in 2010, during which season he injured his leg, missing five rounds. The same year he was named to the

Queensland rugby league team The Queensland rugby league team represents the Australian state of Queensland in rugby league football. Nicknamed the "Maroons" after the colour of their jersey, they play three times a year against arch-rivals New South Wales rugby league tea ...

for Game II of the

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

State of Origin series, but was not needed to play. He saw playing time for Queensland in the

2011 State of Origin series The 2011 State of Origin series was the 30th annual best-of-three series of interstate rugby league football matches between the Queensland and New South Wales representative teams contested under " State of Origin" selection rules. For the third ...

, scoring his first State of Origin try in his Game I debut. The same year he was named to the Australian national team, filling in for injured wingers

Lote Tuqiri Lote Daulako Tuqiri (born 23 September 1979) is a former professional dual-code rugby footballer who primarily played as a winger across both codes. He represented Australia in both rugby league and rugby union, and Fiji in rugby league. Tuqir ...

and

Darius Boyd Darius Boyd (born 17 July 1987) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played as a for the Brisbane Broncos in the National Rugby League (NRL) and has played for Australia national rugby league team, Australia at int ...

. On 3 November 2011, Yow Yeh was named international rookie of the year at the annual

RLIF Awards The RLIF Awards are the Rugby League International Federation's annual major international sporting award for rugby league. Since 2004 the awards ceremony recognises the best referee, coach, developing nations player, international newcomer, capta ...

dinner at the

Tower of London The Tower of London, officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic citadel and castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamle ...

. Yow Yeh featured in the 2012 NRL All Stars Game as the right winger for the Indigenous All Stars team. Yow Yeh started strong in the

2012 NRL season The 2012 NRL season was the 105th season of professional rugby league club competition in Australia, and the first run by the newly formed Australian Rugby League Commission. The main competition, called the 2012 NRL Telstra Premiership due to spon ...

, scoring a crucial try in the second half against the

, the Broncos winning 18–6. In round 4 against the South Sydney Rabbitohs of the

, Yow Yeh suffered compound fracture of the lower right leg. Down 12–0 at the time of his injury, the Broncos went on to win 20–12. However Yow Yeh's 2012 season was over with a serious injury described as "motorbike-like". On 28 April 2013, Yow Yeh returned to rugby league, playing second row for the

. Yow Yeh announced, in March 2014, that he would retire from the game after failing to fully recover from the leg injury he suffered in 2012.

Post Playing

Post retirement from the NRL, Yow Yeh worked behind the scenes at the Broncos in a community role. Yow Yeh is also a host on Triple A Murri and works closely with Bloke in a Bar. Yow Yeh also revealed after retiring that he struggled with a pain killer addiction and bouts of depression as he was recovering from his ankle injury, he managed to overcome the need for medication and became the Broncos Indigenous Support Officer.

Statistics

References

External links

NRL profile

Jharal Yow Yeh at ''Brisbane Broncos''

Jharal Yow Yeh at rleague.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yow Yeh, Jharal 1989 births Living people Australia national rugby league team players Australian people of Chinese descent Australian people of Vanuatuan descent Australian rugby league players Brisbane Broncos players Indigenous All Stars players Norths Devils players Queensland Rugby League State of Origin players Redcliffe Dolphins players Rugby league players from Brisbane Rugby league wingers 21st-century Australian sportsmen