Toby Greene has opened up to close mate Dylan Buckley about the passing of his cousin on the latest episode of the Dyl and Friends podcast.
Greene and his family were rocked by the death of his cousin Finley during the middle of last year and Greene is opening up to try and raise awareness and money for mental health support.
“It’s something that’s really affected my family,” Greene told Buckley.
“Half-way through last year, my cousin, who I sort of grew up with - he lived around the corner, he’s the same age as my younger brother so he’s pretty much like a younger brother to me - took his own life.
“He was about to turn 21 that next week.
“It left devastating consequences. No one saw it coming, that was probably the worst part.
“I wish I could have done something. I wish I could have said, ‘come up to Sydney mate, come and hang out for a weekend, let’s talk’.
“There was just no inclination that something like that would happen, which I know rocked a lot of people in my family and still does.”
Greene said it took some time for he and his family to deal with it, and now he sees an opportunity for him to use his profile to raise money for mental health services.
“After that, it took such a heavy toll on people around me and my Mum and Aunty are still obviously hugely affected by it,” he said.
“It took a while to even talk about it. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and you hear so many sad stories and obviously what happened with Jacinda Barclay a couple of weeks ago was again, really devastating.
“I thought it was time to do something about it and talk about it and contribute in a positive way.”
This November, Toby and Dyl have started a fundraising team for Movember in memory of Finley: a beloved son, brother, cousin and friend.
The pair will be raising money by growing moustaches across the month of November, while Dyl is also aiming to run 150km across the 30 days and Toby will give up alcohol for the entire month (in off-season!).
To find out more and donate to the Mo’s for Finley page, click here: https://movember.com/t/dylandfriends?mc=1
In this episode, the mates also touched on their friendship, favourite travel spots, the player movement at the GIANTS and what their plans are for the coming months.
You can listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts or via the player below.
Headspace https://headspace.org.au/
LifeLine - Ph: 13 11 14 https://www.lifeline.org.au/
Movember conversations - https://conversations.movember.com/
The Banksia Project - https://thebanksiaproject.org.au/
Mr Perfect - https://mrperfect.org.au/
HeadsUpGuys - https://headsupguys.org/
Men’s Line - https://bit.ly/3arJmCi
