\n Jordan Dawson opens up on his heartfelt speech at the AFL Awards.\n <\/p>\n
Adelaide Captain Jordan Dawson says he has been overwhelmed by the amount of support he has received following his heartfelt speech at the AFL Awards on Tuesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dawson was invited on stage after winning the AFL Players Association Most Courageous Player award, and spoke powerfully about mental health advocacy and to those who were struggling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking to the media upon his return to Adelaide on Wednesday, Dawson thanked the AFL community and went in-depth on why he spoke the way he did.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been overwhelming the support that I’ve received, it’s obviously not why I did it, but to know that you know words will have a lot of impact (is very rewarding),\u201d Dawson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a good time for me to maybe speak up a little bit, like I touched on last night, it (the mental health space) is something that I want to delve into a little bit more over the coming years.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut also, it’s still pretty raw, and it’s something that I’m still battling with and learning to deal with as well. So the support’s been unbelievable from the whole AFL community, family and friends and people back home. It’s been awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also took the chance to reiterate his words from the speech, and thank his support network both at the footy Club and away from the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo lean on your loved ones (has been the biggest lesson), obviously, my beautiful wife, who’s been there with me the whole way through, and wonderful family around me, and her family as well, has been an unbelievable support for myself,\u201d Dawson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe footy Club’s been awesome, the whole community, the AFL has been unbelievable. So it\u2019s just to make sure that I’ve been able to lean on those people, but then also take the time when I need to reset and get away from the Club and have time for myself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s probably been the key message: is just to lean on those around me, but then also give myself the time that I need when I need it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordan Dawson opens up on his heartfelt speech at the AFL Awards. Adelaide Captain Jordan Dawson says he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-605123","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\/605123","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=605123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}