Tackle Your Feelings Matches

This Saturday, the second edition of the Tackle Your Feelings awareness matches will take place at Kardinia Park West, between Geelong Football Netball League clubs St Mary's and Geelong West Giants.

The clubs will don blue and red socks, symbolizing the colours of the Tackle Your Feelings program, an initiative dedicated to raising awareness about mental health.

The Tackle Your Feelings program's primary objective is to strengthen the ability of netball and football coaches, through the use of a local psychologist, to see the signs of poor mental health within their players.

About the program

Tackle Your Feelings is a free mental health training program for community football/netball coaches, as well as committee members and other club support staff.

The program is delivered by a local psychologist and aims to help participants gain the tools to Understand, Recognise and Respond to signs of mental ill-health in their players.

In 2022, the program was delivered to more than 2500 community coaches from 200 clubs across Australia.

The program was inspired by mental health education developed for AFL professional coaches and players, consisting of a 90-minute face-to-face presentation from a local psychologist and additional online learning. 

Tackle Your Feelings ambassadors Leon Cameron, Nathan Buckley, Bec Goddard, Ellie Blackburn, Steven May and Dylan Buckley also feature throughout the video content within the program. 

The program was formed by the AFL Coaches Association, AFL Players’ Association and Zurich Insurance in 2018, after the tragic death of Adelaide coach Phil Walsh three years earlier.

The program was evaluated by Monash University in 2021. The attached document provides further background.

How your club can get involved

TYF will facilitate Tackle Your Feelings sessions at local football clubs throughout your region and we invite your clubs to participate.  

The program is free and participants who complete the workshop and online modules will be eligible for some great prizes through the Tackle Your Feelings Rewards Program.

To get involved in the program, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Further details about the program can be found here.

Image: David Smith (Geelong Advertiser)