Rugby League World Cup match day at the DW Stadium to focus on Movember and mental health

A double header of games will take place on November 5, with England Women facing Canada, and the men potentially in quarter-final action.

Wigan Warriors’ executive director Kris Radlinski is excited for the tournament to come to the town and hopes the occasion can be used to spread an important message.

He said: “It’s great there is a Rugby League World Cup game in Wigan, it means a lot to the people in the town, so we will make the most of it and there’ll be a great atmosphere.

"Hopefully England will make the quarter-finals and it will be jam packed here for that game.

“I think the mental health movement in rugby league has been really important in recent years and we have been at the front of many sports, so to make this a focus is a really important step.

“In the last few years, the Movember movement has been embraced by many people around the country.

“We’ve all got to be big enough and tough enough to open up if needs be. We know how important Terry Newton was to us all and we all wish he would’ve opened up to us a little bit at the time.

“I think his death started a movement, which we have to keep moving forward. Having the World Cup on a huge stage to push this message is really important and it’s one Wigan

Warriors and the stadium are behind.

“This is a very inclusive World Cup, the committee have set some ambitious targets, but they are very achievable. If all the people who come understand the messages we are trying

to push, then it will have a tremendous impact.”

The initiative has been put together in partnership with Movember and Rugby League Cares, alongside the tournament itself.

This will be the first-ever sporting event to deliver a ground-breaking mental fitness charter, which has the aim of educating every player, team official, match official, teammate and volunteer to look after their own mental fitness and that of those around them.

Former New Zealand international Robbie Hunter-Paul is the Mental Fitness Ambassador for the Rugby League World Cup.

He is keen to help others open up about their mental health and believes a similar service would’ve been hugely beneficial to him.

He said: “It’s absolutely fantastic. It was originally meant to be at Anfield last year, but where else better than the DW Stadium.

"This is one of the heartlands of rugby league, a lot of people will turn out. This round is all about driving wellbeing into our communities.

“If you think about rugby, it’s positioned as a masculine activity. Traditionally it’s not considered very masculine to be able to show your vulnerabilities, but that’s nonsense.

"To be able to unload your emotions allows you to be more productive in life, it’s just a fact.

“As an athlete, if I had known then what I know now, I would’ve been a better player, lived a happier existence, and importantly I would’ve had less injuries, because preparation is so important.

“If you want to be the best athlete you can, you need the strongest mind, because with that comes a strong body. Mind first, body will follow.

“One the sad things about us only learning this now is, we could’ve helped people before. If these things had been in place, we could’ve educated athletes earlier in their careers so tragedies wouldn’t have happened.

“We need to open it up and say it’s okay to talk about. Still to this day, my generation still think it’s a taboo topic, and it really isn’t. If you want to be the best version of yourself, you need to sort your head out first to achieve what you can in your life.”

Hunter-Paul is also involved with the Ahead of the Game Programme, which aims to reach out to young athletes in rugby league towns and cities.

“If you look at the rugby league communities they are in lower socio-economic areas and live in what are considered more deprived places, where mental health issues are more prevalent, with higher rates of suicide,” he added.

“There’s a massive statistic saying that the majority of mental health issues start in adolescence, and that’s where we are targeting, ripping up tree trunks to get out to teams and getting into their clubs.

“We have been delivering sessions to 10,000 young athletes, as well as their parents and coaches, teaching them the foundations of mental health, telling them that it’s okay to talk about things.

“It’s about breaking down stereotypes that your mental health is a taboo, it isn’t, it’s just like your physical health. We need to rip that away, because prevention is better than a

cure.

“The Ahead of the Game Programme will be providing a tool kit for every nation to take home, so this is going well beyond the north of England and is going global. It is the first and the biggest of its kind.

“The impact is just giving those young people the understanding that they can come back from feeling unhappy and there’s things they can do. The key word I like to use is ‘happy,’ because we all want to be happy.”

St Helens’ Amy Hardcastle, who is a facilitator for Ahead of the Game, is excited to both play for England at the DW Stadium and to use the platform to create awareness.

She said: “It’s great for me because I’ve never played here, so to be able to do it with the men’s quarter-final is fantastic.

“I’m really excited and really proud about what the initiative is doing, it is huge for mental health because it’s Movember and there might be a few moustaches knocking about, so it will raise awareness.

“Our charity focusses on adolescence, but we also do men and women offload programmes. It’s just raising awareness of struggles people may have and being aware.

"It’s really important. Women are more open about their situation but being supported is really important and will help the communities.”

This announcement also coincides with Wigan’s Wellfest initiative, which is a series of events taking place up until the end of January.

Coun Jim Moodie, who is the lead member for leisure and public health at Wigan Council, was pleased to be at the launch event and excited to see what the World Cup can bring.

He said: “It is a tremendous initiative, right across the borough we can get benefits from this. In my own ward in Ince we have Rose Bridge and St Pats, so I know the things taking place will help raise the profile for mental health.

“I’ll be coming down to the match as a spectator and hopefully we can fill this stadium.”

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