\n Jordan Dawson spoke openly after winning the 2026 AFLPA Most Courageous Player Award.\n <\/p>\n
Adelaide Captain Jordan Dawson has delivered a heartfelt message to those struggling with mental health after accepting the AFL Players Association\u2019s Most Courageous Player Award on Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dawson spoke at the annual AFL Awards, a night where he won the AFLPA\u2019s Best Captain and Most Courageous Player Awards, as well as being named the All-Australian Vice Captain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old was interviewed by Fox Footy\u2019s Jonathan Brown, where he spoke about the \u201craw\u201d emotions of the 2026 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a struggle, it\u2019s not easy. It\u2019s a range of emotions, and they come at different times. For me, it was just about creating a safe place within the footy Club, within the home,\u201d Dawson said.<\/p>\n
\u201c(It\u2019s about) me understanding that it\u2019s okay to feel a certain type of way, and to talk to people that are close to me, the ones I love, and make sure we\u2019re having ongoing conversations about how we\u2019re dealing with the events that have happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s still pretty raw, it\u2019s always going to be hard to talk about I think. I\u2019m just so fortunate I\u2019ve got such great support around me in the football Club, but also my loving family and my wife\u2019s family. I definitely wouldn\u2019t be here without them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dawson then took the chance to deliver a message to those that might be struggling, and explained how he hoped to grow in the mental health advocacy space.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to say, the mental health space is something that\u2019s pretty new and pretty raw to me at the moment, but it\u2019s definitely something I want to learn a bit more about,\u201d Dawson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to wish anyone who\u2019s struggled with mental health out there \u2013 or is struggling with mental health \u2013 to know that you are definitely loved, and the world is a better place when you\u2019re in it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that you are enough, and we all love you, and you have beautiful family and friends around you.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike I said, (mental health) is a space that I really want to get into, but when the time\u2019s right, I\u2019ll answer that. I just want to say \u2018you are enough, and you\u2019re loved\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
“The mental health space is something that’s pretty new and pretty raw to me at the moment but it’s definitely something that I want to learn a bit more about,” Dawson said.<\/p>\n
“I just want to wish anyone who’s struggling with mental health to know that you are definitely loved and the world is a better place with you in it.<\/p>\n
“You are enough, and we all love you, and you have beautiful family and friends around you.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordan Dawson spoke openly after winning the 2026 AFLPA Most Courageous Player Award. Adelaide Captain Jordan Dawson has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-604573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}