Indigenous All Stars invited nine-year-old rugby fan after seeing video of him crying.
Quaden Bayles, the Australian boy who was bullied at school for dwarfism and received an outpouring of global support after a video of him sobbing went viral, has led out an Indigenous rugby league team. The nine-year-old Murri boy, who dreams of becoming a professional rugby player, strode on to the pitch with the players for an exhibition match in Queensland between Australia’s Indigenous All Stars, made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players, and the New Zealand Maori, just days after his mother posted a clip of him crying after school.
Fullback Latrell Mitchell, of the South Sydney Rabbitohs, had invited him to lead out the side in a video. “We’ve got your back and just want to make sure that you are doing all right … we want you around, we want you to lead us out on the weekend,” he said. Bayles held the hand of team captain Joel Thompson as he walked on to the pitch, after receiving support from actor Hugh Jackman, comedian Brad Williams and basketball player Enes Kanter in recent days.
In the video posted by his mother Yarraka Bayles, she said: “This is what bullying does,” while her son sobbed.
