Yesterday, it was announced that Kieran Foran would be taking an indefinite leave of absence from the NRL to sort out some physical and mental health issues.
Although the Eels have been tactful regarding the reasons, it would appear that the situation might have something to do with his separation from his partner, as well as the increasingly acrimonious negotiations between him and his former club.
Mental health issues in rugby league are nothing new.
Many players come from troubled backgrounds and the intensity of the game can take its own toll.
However, Foran’s struggles seem to have captured the popular imagination in an especially dramatic way.
Across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit and the media generally, comments and responses have been quite teary.
To some extent, that comes down to Foran fandom.
However, it’s also because the disclosure of the Parramatta’s halfback’s troubles feels very different from the way mental health is usually managed and represented within NRL.
All too often, it feels as if mental health is invoked by the NRL to explain away a player’s bad behaviour, or pre-empt an unfavourable or unflattering judgement.
Of course, mental health can often produce antisocial and unproductive player.
However, I’ve become a bit cynical in recent years about how often the NRL pulls it out to explain player indiscretion or misconduct.
Having known a few people with serious mental health conditions, it seems to cheapen it a bit when it’s used as an excuse in this way.
What distinguishes Foran’s situation is that his mental health hasn’t been invoked to explain away any particularly bad behaviour.
Sure, some Manly-Warringah fans might not be that keen on him after he walked away from the club, while rumours have circulated online about his off field behaviour this year.
Still, the way in which Foran’s mental health issues have been disclosed has been very different from the way in which Blake Ferguson’s were disclosed, or in which Shaun Kenny-Dowall’s were disclosed.
With both Fergo and SKD I had a very clear sense that the media was trying to use their mental health issues to spin a positive or more sympathetic depiction of them.
In the case of SKD, I think that sympathy was justified. In the case of Ferguson, maybe not.
In both cases, however, it felt as if mental health was an important part of their public rehabilitation and image management within their respective clubs.
By contrast, Foran gains nothing from admitting mental health issues right now.
Although he’s no longer in the white and maroon jersey and the 2011 grand final is half a decade ago now, he’s still one of the best halves out there.
Since he’s arrived at Parra, his relationship with Corey Norman has helped the Eels to one of their best starts in years.
Indeed, for many Eels fans, it must have felt as if Foran was slowly but surely ushering in a new era for the club.
On top of that, Foran is a fairly self-effacing player: he’s tough and does what has to be done without ever making fuss about it.
For both those reasons, there’s something peculiarly vulnerable about his disclosure of a mental health situation at this particular moment in his career.
In an NRL landscape in which mental health is so frequently invoked to excuse bad behaviour, it’s striking to see just how much it can debilitate a player when it really hits.
It also reminds us that people can suffer from mental health problems who appear to be otherwise OK.
Nobody would have guessed that Foran would be sufficiently unwell to leave the game for an indefinite period.
More than any NRL player of recent years, his situation seems to have galvanised people and reminded them of the importance – and often the invisibility – of mental health problems.
Here’s hoping that he continues to get the rest and recovery he needs to return to his place on the field as soon as possible.
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