Mental health and sports: emotional fitness is a game of two halves

The Movember Ahead of the Game programme aims to raise awareness of mental health and provide young people with tools to manage pressure in their lives, both on and off the field

Liam Brady: "Just because you are doing really well in school or you're an athlete or playing for Cavan or Dublin or Galway does not make you immune to mental health challenges."

For an inter-county goalkeeper who — among other things — has landed a 45 against Dublin in the All-Ireland Championship, Liam Brady knows a thing or two about pressure. But as he says: "There's pressure, and there's pressure."

Brady, 27, is one of the facilitators for the Movember Ahead of the Game programme, which aims to raise awareness of mental health — the positive and the negative — among young players in their early teens around the country. Now in its second year here after years in development and use in Australia, Britain and elsewhere, it sees stars such as Brady speaking directly to young people about their own issues, both on and off the field.