South Sydney premiership-winner Kyle Turner has died at 31.
Capable of playing on an edge or in the middle at lock, Turner made 91 first-grade appearances for the Rabbitohs between 2014 and 2019.
He started from the bench in the side’s drought-breaking 2014 grand final victory, the culmination of a rookie season that yielded 24 games.
He represented NSW Country in the last City vs Country fixture in 2017 and twice played for the Indigenous All Stars in 2015 and 2017.
Injury hampered Turner’s time in first-grade. He notably suffered a serious neck injury in the 2015 All Stars match that forced him to undergo disc replacement surgery.
But Turner remained a fan favourite at Redfern, receiving the Burrow Supporters Group Appreciation Award at the club’s awards night in 2016.
In 2019, he fell out of favour under the Rabbitohs’ new coach Wayne Bennett, who told him to look elsewhere for opportunities from 2020.
He returned to his hometown of Coonabarabran in northern NSW, where he played for locals the Coonabarabran Unicorns and became a schoolteacher.
The Unicorns will wear black armbands this weekend in tribute to Turner.
His cause of death is unknown.
AAP
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