But when the couple came home, negative thoughts enveloped Porter, with the prop writing: \u201cIt felt like a form of sleep paralysis, where you wake up at night constantly thinking there\u2019s something lurking in the corner of the bedroom. A shadow that I couldn\u2019t grasp.<\/p>\n
Andrew Porter is hugged by his wife Elaine Sutton after his side’s defeat to the All Blacks. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI became a hermit. I just didn\u2019t want to talk to anyone, particularly my teammates, because I\u2019d let them down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Porter says he was \u201cdevastated\u201d when fulltime was blown in the quarter-final loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n He knew he had made \u201cmistakes\u201d, including giving away repeated penalties.<\/p>\n \u201cI suppose I lost the head a small bit,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt that the mistakes I made in the game had cost us the result. I have never felt so low in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n Mentally devastated, Porter went into therapy to try to address the negative thoughts and broken self-esteem.<\/p>\n \u201c[The therapist] helped me to realise that I was making the defeat into something it wasn\u2019t,\u201d Porter wrote in Heart on My Sleeve.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of understanding that I\u2019d simply made mistakes, I was thinking I was the worst player ever.\u201d<\/p>\n The therapist also educated Porter that the grief he was feeling about the tournament exit of Ireland \u2013 who went into Rugby World Cup as favourites<\/a> \u2013 was linked to past tragedy.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said that when you have lost someone close to you and you have another loss, your mind goes straight back to the first; it\u2019s like muscle memory \u2013 you think that that\u2019s how loss should feel,\u201d he confided.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe that\u2019s why my reaction to our World Cup defeat had been so dramatic. It was a double-edged sword in that nothing could compare to that first loss of Mum, but at the same time, I was experiencing every loss after it like the first.\u201d<\/p>\n The newly released Heart on My Sleeve \u2013 published by Eriu \u2013 has since been short-listed as a finalist in the 2025 Irish Book of the Year awards.<\/p>\n Porter starts his brutally honest book with a poignant chapter on his mother\u2019s death in 2008 and the huge impact the tragedy had on his family, and how they all handled the death differently.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first and really the fundamental loss in my life was that of my mum, Wendy.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery other loss that I\u2019ve experienced on the field or in life, comes back to that. When she died, after a long struggle with cancer, I lost her, but I also lost my family, as we each grieved in our own way.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople often say that grief can bring a family together, but in our case, we were all in our own worlds, trying to make sense of it in our own different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n As well as the pain of his mother\u2019s death \u2013 and how the World Cup loss to the All Blacks brought it back so painfully for him \u2013 Porter also opens up on how he battled a serious eating disorder while a schoolboy.<\/p>\n Porter is no stranger to New Zealand rugby fans.<\/p>\n He has toured here with both Ireland and the British and Irish Lions<\/a>.<\/p>\n The powerful prop has also been involved in some of Ireland\u2019s famous victories over the All Blacks over the past decade.<\/p>\n He also played a leading role in Netflix\u2019s Six Nations: Full Contact that took viewers behind the scenes during two Six Nations campaigns<\/a>, including talking about grief and other battles he has faced off the pitch.<\/p>\n That included his mother\u2019s death, the eating disorder and thoughts of self-harm.<\/p>\n Porter was widely praised for being so honest in front of the TV cameras. Writing in Heart on My Sleeve, he said being so upfront was something he never regretted.<\/p>\n \u201cTo use the word \u2018cathartic\u2019 is a bit of a cliche, but it was: I felt that for the first time in my life I was saying: \u2018This is who I am\u2019.\u201d Porter wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cI decided that if I was going to tell my story in public like this, there was no way I could present a false version of myself or not tell the unvarnished truth.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the filming wrapped up, I felt a bit lighter, a bit freer, because I\u2019d been fully myself.\u201d<\/p>\nIreland prop Andrew Porter has revealed in his award-nominated new autobiography how he needed therapy after losing to the All Blacks. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
Andrew Porter in happier times scoring a try for Ireland during their famous 2022 tour of New Zealand. Photo \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
Irish prop Andrew Porter has written a no-holds-barred autobiography lifting the lid on success, as well as deep grief he has endured.<\/p>\n