Former NRL forward Dayne Weston values the position he has as he takes his cautionary mental health story to today\u2019s players.<\/p>\n
Now 39, he had stints with Cronulla Sutherland, North Queensland, Penrith and Melbourne 2007-2015 before finishing his playing career in England while contending with personal challenges along the way.<\/p>\n
He has since become a strong voice among former players spreading his message to today\u2019s generation.<\/p>\n
Weston recently visited the One New Zealand Warriors to tell the club\u2019s NRL players and staff about his experiences, how he fought inner battles but found a way back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve come here to share my story. Wellbeing and the mental health space has been important to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been through my own journey with it. I\u2019ve got a gift, my life, to go out and share that with other people. It\u2019s just all about our own vulnerability, giving men an understanding to be open and share how we\u2019re feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weston, who established a men\u2019s group called Men of Gold, was grateful for the response he received at the Warriors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty cool (being here). I don\u2019t take these opportunities lightly so to come over (to the Warriors) and do it, I\u2019m very appreciative.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could tell the eyes were invested from the get-go. I think what\u2019s important for me is how I can relate to the players as I\u2019ve sat in these chairs. I\u2019ve heard these conversations. When it comes from an ex-player and someone who has walked the journey, they can relate to it so much. I felt like I had their attention the whole time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard them talk afterwards about the impact it had on them, that\u2019s the thing that gets me. If I can help one person I\u2019ve done my job. That\u2019s the mindset I always have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NRL forward Dayne Weston values the position he has as he takes his cautionary mental health story…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-472490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}