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Tackle Your Feelings

'Not only was I not enjoying being a rugby player, I wasn't enjoying anything I was doing'

Munster’s Cathal Sheridan adds his voice to IRUPA’s mental health campaign.


Irish Rugby Players / Vimeo

WE ASK PLAYERS all the time how they coped during rehabilitation from injury. Because it’s a difficult thing to do.

The switch from day-to-day training, playing the game you love and working out with the wider group to the relative isolation of rehab and a solo struggle is, even for the most positive mindsets, a massive frustration.

Munster’s Sligo-born scrum-half Cathal Sheridan has today added his voice to the IRUPA Tackle Your Feelings campaign, which featured internationals Jack McGrath and Hannah Tyrell earlier this week.

“I had been injured plenty of times before this instance,” Sheridan says, “many much more serious and more long term, but I had always managed to deal very effectively with the challenges that go hand in hand with injuries.

At the time I didn’t even understand the effect it was having on me. Not only was I not enjoying being a rugby player, I wasn’t really enjoying anything I was doing.

“It was only after a close friend questioned my behaviours that I realised I had been isolating myself, falling into bad habits and even blaming rugby for my frustration.”

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‘Eventually you start talking, like a gas valve releasing’: Jack McGrath on his brother’s suicide

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