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Over the last week i brought up Sam Perrett's situation with his son and his continued commitment to the Roosters.
Well it is time to bring to light the commitment and loyalty of another player to His family and his team.
As we know, braith plays his 200th game in NRL and his 90th game for the Roosters (played 110 for dogs), and yes he has copped a beating on here in the past, but here is a little insite into his personal life over the past year and the commitment and loyalty he is showing to his family and the club..........
Well it is time to bring to light the commitment and loyalty of another player to His family and his team.
As we know, braith plays his 200th game in NRL and his 90th game for the Roosters (played 110 for dogs), and yes he has copped a beating on here in the past, but here is a little insite into his personal life over the past year and the commitment and loyalty he is showing to his family and the club..........
The emotional journey for Braith and his brave mum By Jessica Halloran From: The Sunday Telegraph July 18, 2010 12:01AM
BRAITH Anasta has an uncanny ability to find his mother's face in the crowd just before kick-off. No matter where she is sitting, home or away, he will find her.
But for the first time in a decade of first-grade football, at the opening game of this season, she wasn't there.
He stood out on the field nervous and out of sorts. "Things weren't normal," Braith says. "And that was very tough."
His mother was at home floored by her first bout of chemotherapy for an aggressive form of breast cancer. While her body may have been broken that day, her spirit was not dented because of Braith.
It's his football that has always buoyed the Anasta family. When Braith's father, Peter, took his life in 1997, it was football that kept the family going.
"You know we lost his dad," Kim says. "To find a way out of the darkness, we all went with the positive flow of Braith's football. It gave us a focus and he gave us hope.
"His father always knew he would do well in footy and we made sure he would stay on the right path. We had a lot of family support. We made sure nothing was going to stop Braith from doing that.
"We did everything we could to make sure it would be great."
Like his father imagined, Braith has an impressive list of football honours; Australian and NSW jerseys, a premiership ring with the Bulldogs, Roosters captaincy and today he will play his 200th first-grade game when he runs out against his old club.
And his achievements are pushing his mother through another dark time as she fights this "triple negative" cancer.
A stylish black beanie covers the evidence of chemo, her big silver earrings twinkle and over tea and chocolate cake, she warmly talks about Braith.
"I just love how he handles himself, he's been through a few tough periods in football," Kim says. "He's been knocked down but he always comes back."
Before he steps on to a footy ground, both mother and son are racked with nerves.
"I think she feels what I feel," Braith says.
It's this closeness that has got them over their "second hurdle". It was last November after going for a routine mammogram that a lump was discovered in Kim's right breast. At first she kept it a secret from her boys.
She didn't want to worry them. "It's usually nothing," she thought to herself.
On the day she had a biopsy, Braith dropped by a bundle of his washing to the Malabar family home. Just an hour earlier she had tissue extracted for testing, but she didn't mention what she was going through. She didn't want him to worry.
But she couldn't keep it as her secret a few weeks on when she sat in her doctor's surgery and was told that she had breast cancer. Her first thought was panic: "Oh my God, what do I tell my boys?"
It was a typically warm November morning and Braith was driving back from a football camp on the South Coast when he took the phone call from his mother telling him the news.
As he sits beside his mother, Braith is engulfed by sadness as he remembers the moment. Tears have welled in his eyes and he wipes them away.
The thought of losing her is devastating.
"That was tough," Anasta says. "I'm getting emotional now."
Braith's emotions then settle.
"You feel like it's not real," he says. "You don't think it's going to happen to you, to your mother, it was definite a shock.
"Everything gets put on the backburner. It was hard.
"There is nothing else you really think about. You are just hoping things work out well."
He skipped training sessions as he was distracted by his mother's illness and wanted to be by her side. He was also still recovering from a severe ankle injury.
His Roosters coach Brian Smith told him: "Do whatever you've got to do to make sure your mum is all right."
"My start of the year was really interrupted with injury, with mum, it was pretty tough," Anasta says.
He would sit in the doctors' offices, holding his mother, soaking up all the information about her illness. Kim was often in so much shock she couldn't absorb their words.
After these appointments Braith would also be left devastated by his mother's treatment plan, which initially went from radiation to four bouts of chemotherapy and recently to a double mastectomy. In September, she will have a breast reconstruction.
Braith, his brother Damon, Kim's sister Lyn and a strong unit of friends have all determinedly supported her.
"It was better for me to go there and understand and know what she was going to go through," Braith says. "It helped her too. Because she was so in shock and stressed about it, she couldn't really take in what the doctor was saying. I'd sort of take in everything and explain to her what they had said, what was going to happen. It was a really tough time.
"But I've done really nothing compared to her friends and her sister Lyn. They've all been great.
"I'll be there as much as I can, but it's been hard with footy. Being captain, I've got to be there at the club as much as I can. It's important for me to make sure the Roosters go well this year."
Then Kim interjects. "He's put a lot of work into that club on and off the field."
Braith says: "It's still very important that I go well and the team goes well. It's basically your life because basically your life is a lot happier when you are going well. I know Mum is happier as well, you know. It puts a smile on her face. If we are winning every week, at the end of the day she knows I'm happy."
Illness and surgery caused her to miss many games, but she stayed in touch with his form through the television.
Kim, 54, reinforces how important it is that her son stays on top of his game and is not distracted by her battle.
"The bottom line is we support each other," she says. "He still has to perform no matter what is going on. It doesn't matter what, he has to perform."
Braith says: "That's it. Sometimes I'll speak to her and I'll know she's really sick. But she will make sure I'm feeling good."
Braith has fallen back on his girlfriend Jodi Gordon and his school friends during his mother's illness.
Jodi and Braith often swing by the Malabar family home to keep her company. He still has a tight-knit bunch of school mates, sometimes up to six of them, who venture over every Monday night for Kim's home-cooked meals.
"Jodi has been great," Braith says. "And my mates have been awesome as well."
Just two weeks after a double mastectomy, Kim bravely walked in to the Women in League function with Braith supporting her every step.
He was nominated for the favourite son award, but no one in the room truly knew what a rock he had been for his mother because he had kept the extent of her illness to within family, friends and the club. Throughout the lunch Braith kept his left hand firmly on the back of her chair. His care and concern for her was admirable.
It will be a two-year wait until Kim knows if she's clear of cancer. While she may draw strength from watching her boy represent the Tri-colours, he also finds inspiration in her. It's the way she is not only handling herself now but her strength when his dad passed away.
He looks to her with immense pride and says, "You've always stayed strong."
In the days, weeks and months after her husband Peter died, many expected Kim to crumble.
"Most people thought I wouldn't survive that actually because we were very close," she says. "We had been together since school, were very happily married, my family in particular didn't think I would survive that, but you really don't have a choice. You have to do what you have to do."
Braith says: "And this, it's the next step, the next hurdle."
With a great spirit Kim smiles and laughs: "Hopefully there's no more."
Braith starts gently laughing too.
"Yes, hopefully, there's no more," Braith says, smiling with mock mild exhaustion. "We are hoping that's the end. Nothing surprises us any more. But hopefully that's it."
BRAITH Anasta has an uncanny ability to find his mother's face in the crowd just before kick-off. No matter where she is sitting, home or away, he will find her.
But for the first time in a decade of first-grade football, at the opening game of this season, she wasn't there.
He stood out on the field nervous and out of sorts. "Things weren't normal," Braith says. "And that was very tough."
His mother was at home floored by her first bout of chemotherapy for an aggressive form of breast cancer. While her body may have been broken that day, her spirit was not dented because of Braith.
It's his football that has always buoyed the Anasta family. When Braith's father, Peter, took his life in 1997, it was football that kept the family going.
"You know we lost his dad," Kim says. "To find a way out of the darkness, we all went with the positive flow of Braith's football. It gave us a focus and he gave us hope.
"His father always knew he would do well in footy and we made sure he would stay on the right path. We had a lot of family support. We made sure nothing was going to stop Braith from doing that.
"We did everything we could to make sure it would be great."
Like his father imagined, Braith has an impressive list of football honours; Australian and NSW jerseys, a premiership ring with the Bulldogs, Roosters captaincy and today he will play his 200th first-grade game when he runs out against his old club.
And his achievements are pushing his mother through another dark time as she fights this "triple negative" cancer.
A stylish black beanie covers the evidence of chemo, her big silver earrings twinkle and over tea and chocolate cake, she warmly talks about Braith.
"I just love how he handles himself, he's been through a few tough periods in football," Kim says. "He's been knocked down but he always comes back."
Before he steps on to a footy ground, both mother and son are racked with nerves.
"I think she feels what I feel," Braith says.
It's this closeness that has got them over their "second hurdle". It was last November after going for a routine mammogram that a lump was discovered in Kim's right breast. At first she kept it a secret from her boys.
She didn't want to worry them. "It's usually nothing," she thought to herself.
On the day she had a biopsy, Braith dropped by a bundle of his washing to the Malabar family home. Just an hour earlier she had tissue extracted for testing, but she didn't mention what she was going through. She didn't want him to worry.
But she couldn't keep it as her secret a few weeks on when she sat in her doctor's surgery and was told that she had breast cancer. Her first thought was panic: "Oh my God, what do I tell my boys?"
It was a typically warm November morning and Braith was driving back from a football camp on the South Coast when he took the phone call from his mother telling him the news.
As he sits beside his mother, Braith is engulfed by sadness as he remembers the moment. Tears have welled in his eyes and he wipes them away.
The thought of losing her is devastating.
"That was tough," Anasta says. "I'm getting emotional now."
Braith's emotions then settle.
"You feel like it's not real," he says. "You don't think it's going to happen to you, to your mother, it was definite a shock.
"Everything gets put on the backburner. It was hard.
"There is nothing else you really think about. You are just hoping things work out well."
He skipped training sessions as he was distracted by his mother's illness and wanted to be by her side. He was also still recovering from a severe ankle injury.
His Roosters coach Brian Smith told him: "Do whatever you've got to do to make sure your mum is all right."
"My start of the year was really interrupted with injury, with mum, it was pretty tough," Anasta says.
He would sit in the doctors' offices, holding his mother, soaking up all the information about her illness. Kim was often in so much shock she couldn't absorb their words.
After these appointments Braith would also be left devastated by his mother's treatment plan, which initially went from radiation to four bouts of chemotherapy and recently to a double mastectomy. In September, she will have a breast reconstruction.
Braith, his brother Damon, Kim's sister Lyn and a strong unit of friends have all determinedly supported her.
"It was better for me to go there and understand and know what she was going to go through," Braith says. "It helped her too. Because she was so in shock and stressed about it, she couldn't really take in what the doctor was saying. I'd sort of take in everything and explain to her what they had said, what was going to happen. It was a really tough time.
"But I've done really nothing compared to her friends and her sister Lyn. They've all been great.
"I'll be there as much as I can, but it's been hard with footy. Being captain, I've got to be there at the club as much as I can. It's important for me to make sure the Roosters go well this year."
Then Kim interjects. "He's put a lot of work into that club on and off the field."
Braith says: "It's still very important that I go well and the team goes well. It's basically your life because basically your life is a lot happier when you are going well. I know Mum is happier as well, you know. It puts a smile on her face. If we are winning every week, at the end of the day she knows I'm happy."
Illness and surgery caused her to miss many games, but she stayed in touch with his form through the television.
Kim, 54, reinforces how important it is that her son stays on top of his game and is not distracted by her battle.
"The bottom line is we support each other," she says. "He still has to perform no matter what is going on. It doesn't matter what, he has to perform."
Braith says: "That's it. Sometimes I'll speak to her and I'll know she's really sick. But she will make sure I'm feeling good."
Braith has fallen back on his girlfriend Jodi Gordon and his school friends during his mother's illness.
Jodi and Braith often swing by the Malabar family home to keep her company. He still has a tight-knit bunch of school mates, sometimes up to six of them, who venture over every Monday night for Kim's home-cooked meals.
"Jodi has been great," Braith says. "And my mates have been awesome as well."
Just two weeks after a double mastectomy, Kim bravely walked in to the Women in League function with Braith supporting her every step.
He was nominated for the favourite son award, but no one in the room truly knew what a rock he had been for his mother because he had kept the extent of her illness to within family, friends and the club. Throughout the lunch Braith kept his left hand firmly on the back of her chair. His care and concern for her was admirable.
It will be a two-year wait until Kim knows if she's clear of cancer. While she may draw strength from watching her boy represent the Tri-colours, he also finds inspiration in her. It's the way she is not only handling herself now but her strength when his dad passed away.
He looks to her with immense pride and says, "You've always stayed strong."
In the days, weeks and months after her husband Peter died, many expected Kim to crumble.
"Most people thought I wouldn't survive that actually because we were very close," she says. "We had been together since school, were very happily married, my family in particular didn't think I would survive that, but you really don't have a choice. You have to do what you have to do."
Braith says: "And this, it's the next step, the next hurdle."
With a great spirit Kim smiles and laughs: "Hopefully there's no more."
Braith starts gently laughing too.
"Yes, hopefully, there's no more," Braith says, smiling with mock mild exhaustion. "We are hoping that's the end. Nothing surprises us any more. But hopefully that's it."
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