Justin Rodski

And then that morphed into mental health because some of the numbers and the statistics just from your family and friends, let alone, you know, from what's happening out there in the community, really started to resonate.

From there, our teams got together and started to work through some ideas.

And that's how we came up with this concept that ultimately as well was brought in really quickly internally at the Storm, whether it be our players, our coaches, our staff, everybody really believed in what this meant and what it's doing and how it's going to help.

And so once you've got those ingredients all put together, it was a pretty powerful combination and

And the team at AIA and obviously Beyond Blue with the work that they do coming on board to help support what is an opportunity for us and a platform for us to highlight how important it is to have those tough conversations because our players are tough on the field, but we want to see them be vulnerable off the field.

Yeah, it did.

And it coincides this weekend with our old boys round.

I think we've got a record number of old boys in town.

So look out to all the pubs across Melbourne for the boys.

But in all seriousness, the focus of those old boys rounds has actually quickly shifted in recent years, led by Peter Robinson, a past player and a staff member at the club.

to actually recognising health and how they're going as men and talking about their, you know, how they're feeling and what's happening at home and giving, you know, making sure that they use the opportunity when they're together to be vulnerable with one another and so it really did coincide beautifully with the old boys round and obviously

talking to our players there was no shortage of players that had stories about their own mental health challenges and how they've dealt with them and all different in different ways some of them around anxiety and pressure some of them were

around something that happened to them as a child.

Some of them were completely different.

So I think what it shows is that there are so many different forms of mental health and everybody's going through different things at different times and hopefully the players telling their stories and the old boys coming together to show that sign of unity can be something really special and powerful for the community.

Yeah, it's about being a role model in the community, and I think that we don't take that position lightly.

It's something that's a responsibility, but something that we genuinely mean and care about.

And, you know, the old boys will be marching from 2.30 from St Andrews Brewery over to Amy Park, and I think that you'll see...

a real show of unity and a show of community care and for us that's something that's so important and so to be able to partner with two great organisations like AIA and obviously Beyond Blue with the work that they do to bring this to life is something that we're really proud of as a club and I really do believe this is going to be the start of something that's going to continue for many, many years to come.

There'll be activations there.