Sunday 19 February 2017 11:52, UK
The Rugby Players' Association (RPA) has launched a 'Lift the Weight' campaign to help remove the stigma surrounding mental health issues.
The campaign is aimed to connect with members of the RPA by sharing the stories and experiences of team-mates and peers in order to create a greater understanding of mental health issues within the sport.
The RPA hopes the campaign will resonate beyond their membership, reaching players at all levels as well as the wider population.
A previous RPA campaign involving Duncan Bell saw an increase of 131 per cent in the number of players contacting the body's confidential counselling service with Cognacity, with 2016 seeing a record number of players use the service.
A new Lift the Weight website will include around 30 interviews on six related topics, involving nine participants including England's 2003 World Cup hero Jonny Wilkinson and current England international James Haskell.
Haskell said: "This campaign is something I feel strongly about because it is an area that gets neglected quite a lot. I've always used a sports psychologist from the early days when I started playing.
"People will always have varying degrees of "issues" whether it is a serious thing, or confidence to play, dealing with ups and downs or whatever it might be. I've found speaking to her all the time very useful in terms of preparing for games, how to deal with ups and downs, where others will let it go.
"You are surrounded by team-mates all the time and statistics say there are going to be people with problems off the field. We're all driven by different things and what the RPA has done is highlight it, encourage people to go out and speak. There is that macho element to rugby and I think sometimes people don't think they can open up."
One current player keen to be involved with the campaign is Leicester Tigers scrum-half Jono Kitto, who told Sky Sports News HQ of his battle with mental health issues.
Kitto said: "It's vital [to talk] and it's life-saving to a certain degree. Stats suggest one in four people in general are going to be affected by mental illness at some point during their lives.
"To reduce the stigma attached will hopefully allow people not to feel isolated, to feel normal, and like any other injury or illness we go through it has to be discussed as openly, and discussed in the same way.
"My experience started when I was around 12 or 13. I had a few experiences with my dad when I may be misinterpreted a few things that were going on and developed a perfection complex.
"I couldn't deal with making mistakes and through my teenage years I was really stressed and anxious, basically looking to be perfect all the time - in sport, academics and as a person.
"That led to so much stress and anxiety building up that my brain couldn't handle it and snapped. When I was around 19 I remember struggling for around six months waking up, not thinking highly of myself and getting to a point where I wished I wasn't alive. At that point I decided I had to talk to someone. I was scared because of the stigma, but I was desperate and had to talk about it.
"People have to feel they are not alone in their struggles. There is a hope you can get better and it will not last forever. It doesn't define you and it's just like an injury to your leg - it just requires open discussion. It is a lot more normal and prevalent than people out there believe.
"I have people around me who I hold myself accountable to now. It's important for people to have relationships they can be open and honest with, including conversations about feelings which for male rugby players might be taboo. They need to be told they are normal and that everyone has emotions. I have contacts I can get in touch with if I have things troubling me and have discussions to get on top of them.
"Because of the likes of James Haskell and Jonny Wilkinson, and now what the RPA is doing, it is putting this into people's thoughts and that can't but help reduce the stigma."
