1
'I had a big meltdown... I had lost control and I didn't like who I was anymore' - Joe Marler
By Josh Raisey
Joe Marler was a guest on Good Morning Britain today to discuss his new documentary Big Boys Don’t Cry, which aired on Wednesday.
The documentary sees Marler travel across the UK exploring ways in which poor mental health can be managed.
The England and Harlequins prop has been very candid in the past about his battle with depression and his mental health struggles, and even urged the British and Irish Lions to add a specialist counsellor to their touring party this year to help players and staff cope with an extended spell in their bubble environment.
Appearing on Good Morning Britain the day after the documentary aired, Marler shared what inspired the film.
“It dawned on me when I had a big meltdown in the back end of 2018,” the 2017 Lions tourist said.
“And I talk about it briefly in the film and I talk about it more in my book. I had lost control and I didn’t like who I was anymore. It just exploded at home and enough was enough. I had upset my wife, I felt ashamed of who I was and what I was doing so I had to go and get help. Fortunately, I found someone to help me, a psychiatrist, then had the diagnosis of depression and moved forward on medication.
“I opened up to my wife and various close friends and one friend in particular was Gray Hughes, who’s the director of this documentary. He came up with the idea ‘look mate, let's go and meet loads of different people who deal with their mental health struggles in different ways using different techniques and that will help you grow and help you understand how different people deal with different things and how it works for them. It might not work for you, it might work for you, let’s try it. I’ll use a camera to film it all as well.’
“So I went ‘oh, okay, so this seems to be a catch-22. You’re suggesting going to get mental health help but you want to film every moment of it.’
“It was Gray’s idea and we’ve been working on it for a little while and I have to say I was a little bit scared, a little bit nervous, about doing it.”
Trending on RugbyPass
2
All Blacks XV player ratings vs Munster
3
Suaalii strikes awe as Wallabies lose midfielder
4
Scott Robertson responds about handling errors
5
Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
Go to comments