‘There’s a lot of shame’: Jayden Brailey’s emotional revelation after third major injury in four years

Jayden Brailey has bravely opened up on his latest heartbreaking ACL tear that left him distraught, ashamed and searching for a sense of identity following his third major injury in the space of four years.

Brailey, 27, joined the Knights in 2020 and has since suffered two ACL tears and an achilles rupture, limiting him to just 38 appearances and costing him a spot in their fairytale run to the finals last year.

The workhorse hooker was back to his best in the opening rounds but received shocking news following the win over the Warriors that he’d ruptured the ACL and torn the meniscus in his right knee.

“It’s not a good place to be,” he said.

“I didn’t know in the sheds what it was. I thought it was a meniscus issue, so it was going to be four or six weeks out at the most.

“I didn’t find out until the next morning after I got scans just how bad it actually was, and I was distraught.

“I had to work on my mental stuff a lot last year.

“Everyone talks about your identity, and mine has been very closely attached with being a footy player, so I had to work on myself away from the game and start valuing other aspects of my life that make me who I am.”

Suffering one season-ending injury is bad enough, but last year’s diagnosis was too much to take for the proud co-captain who struggled to mentally process the news while then having to spend countless hours by himself doing rehab.

“I tried to get away from the game and enjoy my life away from footy,” he said, with Brailey spending most of his time with his partner and his dog in a bid to forget about rugby league for a month.

“You get a lot of self-doubt and there’s a lot of shame. A lot of my happiness was built on playing 80 minutes every week, but I couldn’t do that.

“Because I was like that, I’d have my head down and didn’t want to see anyone and I didn’t want people to see me. It was really hard to go to training because I had to (do the rehab) again.

“It’s such a big mountain to climb when you do your ACL, especially because I’d already done it in the past so I knew what was ahead, so I was over it all.

“Like anything, I worked hard on myself mentally and you eventually progress and get better when you start seeing that light at the end of the tunnel getting closer.”

What also proved tough was seeing the Knights do so well without him, with all of Newcastle getting behind the team as they charged into the finals where they reached the second week.

Those incredible scenes lit a fire in Brailey’s belly and inspired him to prove his critics wrong, although he will likely miss next Thursday’s game against Canberra after he hurt his hamstring back in January.

“The whole time I was trying to make myself feel better,” he said.

“I wasn’t moping around all the time, but I just had my moments. I’d bottle everything up and then I’d come home and talk to my partner and it all comes out, and that’s when I’d get myself into trouble.

“When we were winning all those games, I was so happy for the boys. But I was still hurting, and that’s a good thing because that should hurt.

“That gave me a lot of motivation because I know that’s where we can get to now, and I want to be a part of that. That gave me the fire in the belly to be out with them in my playing kit.

“That’s pushed me along in my rehab to prove a lot of people wrong and to prove myself right that I can get back to my best footy.”