Reuben Williams

Because an assault of any kind is horrific for everybody involved, not just the person involved.

But...

I get the feeling of guilt by the friendship group, but it is absolutely not anybody's fault other than the perpetrators.

No one else is to blame for that.

And one of my best mates, who's an incredible man, Sean Larkin, he was...

uh, the last person at the, um, at the apartment that night.

And he, he left me on the couch at 5am and he thought surely Ruben will be safe here.

I know he said to me how guilty he's felt about leaving me in that, in that situation.

I said to him, Sean is absolutely not your fault.

Like I would have assumed, you know, my friend would be safe in that situation too.

Um, Sean was good enough to come out to, you know, spend all Sunday with me watching the fourth 11 grand final, just, just to be with me.

Like he's, he's an incredible friend, incredibly supportive.

But I do have to remind him, like Sean, you did everything that was reasonable at that point in time.

Um, in terms of like how friends can, can be supportive to each other.

Um, I think particularly for, for men, we have a tendency to, to want to fix things and get things right and correct things, you know, um,

But the best thing you can do in that situation is just be there for them and even just say to them simple things like, I've got no idea what you're going through, but I'm here for you.

And there are a lot of good men who do do that.

My mate, Chris from Cricket Australia, he said, you know, what can we do to help straight away?

My other mate, Garth, we're at the Ashes in Lourdes and he's this, you know, commercial lawyer who works for the Olympics, you know, and we're standing there watching day four and he goes, Rubes, I've seen everything play out like...

Again, I've got no idea what must be going through right now and what, how that must be feeling, but you know, I'm, I'm here for you.