A desire to seek a new challenge, to regain a sense of his past identity, and to emulate the feats of rugby league legend Paul Gallen.
They form the motivation for former Brisbane Lions star Mitch Robinson to trade the Sherrin for the gloves, and embark on what he hopes is a formidable boxing career.
Mitch Robinson became renowned in his AFL career for his hard and fearless approach to a contest.Credit: Getty
“This is something to give me a bit of motivation and get me up in the morning,” he says.
“If I can make a career out of it – two or three years out of boxing – and get me on the straight and narrow it will be really good.
“I don’t want to die wondering.”
The 34-year-old, who forged an AFL tenure spanning 14 years – including 147 appearances in Lions’ colours – will step into the ring for the first time on a card almost entirely comprising past Aussie rules talent.
Having retired following his delisting in light of the Lions’ preliminary final defeat to Geelong in 2022, Robinson admits he battled with the transition, lining up for Morningside Panthers, Darwin Buffaloes and Lauderdale Bombers in various local leagues.
Something was missing. He was still searching for an outlet to truly quench his competitive thirst.
The man himself admits there were times he suffered from the burdens of being removed from a high-performance environment.
But through boxing, he believes he has found his next purpose, beginning with his forthcoming bout against 113-game Richmond Tiger Kayne Pettifer.
“You lose a bit of your identity when you retire from professional sport,” Robinson says.
“You play for 14 years, and you’re so strictly regimented, every hour of your day is scheduled for, and when you finish up you’re kind of looking for where that next buzz is coming from.
“You see why a lot of players go off the rails a lot there because you lose a lot of structure and routine and get lost along the way.
“Mentally you struggle a little bit – obviously you’re playing in front of 50,000 every weekend, and you’re training every day, and you’ve got a purpose in life. I’ve got three small kids, so they kept me on my toes for sure – I was a bit of a stay-at-home dad for a good year there.
Robinson (centre) will fight Kayne Pettifer in Adelaide on April 3.Credit: Getty Images
“I knew my time was coming to an end in AFL, I had a bulging disc in my back and my legs were kind of shot as well, so that’s when you prepare for life after footy.
“Gallen started [boxing] around 33, 34, and you can see that he had a pretty good career. I’ll try to get another two or three fights in and call out some NRL boys along the way and try and stir a bit of politics there.”
While sporting organisations work to ensure athletes are educated and supported to prepare for life after the siren, the transition can prove a mentally daunting experience.
Australian basketball legend Lauren Jackson and AFL great Barry Hall are just some of the nation’s most high-profile athletes to speak out about the struggles.
For some, it has been too much, among them former Wallabies forward Dan Vickerman in 2017.
Dr Tarli Young says the trauma some athletes endure after their careers is tied to the loss of identity, having been so engrossed in professional sport to the extent where that consumes who they are.
Moving away from that, rather than finding the next working outlet, becomes the greatest burden, says Young, a research fellow with the University of Queensland’s School of Psychology.
Lauren Jackson spoke back in 2019 about her struggles transitioning away from professional sport.Credit: Getty
“I’d say the support system is pretty patchy, and I’d say it tends to focus on particular things,” Young says.
“Most of the support that exists is in career transitions, which is good, but that doesn’t seem to be the biggest thing that predicts whether a transition will be positive or not.
“Essentially, transitioning out of elite sport can be really tough because often it really means an upheaval of athletes’ worlds, which have been focused on one thing for such a long time, and it can really crowd out other identities.
“An average person will have friends and family, social sport and work, lots of things going on, but because elite sport takes so much dedication it can have a crowding-out effect where people have that one identity.”
Robinson joins a cohort of retired stars to put the gloves on – among them Justin Hodges, Hall and of course Gallen.
Townsville has hosted two rugby league fight cards since 2011, which featured Scott Prince, Ben Hannant and Todd Carney.
Young believes part of the reason why so many are taking up the sport is a form of “repurposing” – forging a new athletic identity while maintaining a sense of that former self.
Robinson will be joined on the April 3 card in Adelaide by North Melbourne Kangaroos’ premiership champion Corey McKernan, who will make his boxing debut at 50 and has been training on the Sunshine Coast.
Corey McKernan was a ruck star for North Melbourne and could perform all over the ground.Credit: Ken Irwin
Set to take on former Collingwood forward Anthony Rocca, McKernan is determined to use this outlet as a way to promote his mental health support organisation, Walk With Me, which puts together walking groups over Zoom and inspires others to thrive in adversity.
McKernan said since retiring he had frequently sought a new challenge each year, and this shock boxing quest was next on the list.
“I think the big thing is playing top-line sport … you start off, and you want to play your first game, you want to play your first final, and you’re always on the up and up,” McKernan said.
“You can see why it’s nearly set up to have that bit of a fall at the end.
“You’ve always got these challenges every single time that you want to aspire to, and you can probably see it’s any wonder it happens.
“But you can see why having something like a fight … I think it’s the process that really gets you going; yes, we know the end result and what we’re preparing for, but it’s getting the juices flowing about all those things.”
More Than Sport
Dr Tarli Young, along with other UQ researchers, have trialled the More Than Sport program – designed to encourage elite athletes to consider their social connections more deeply in supporting their transition. It has been used in Australia, Scotland and Belgium.
“It’s about helping athletes manage their social identities and social group connections, those connections they tend to lose when they’re so engrossed in elite sport,” Young says.
“It’s really about helping them take a deliberate step in thinking what they’d like to do with those social group connections.
“We encourage them to think about the existing groups – would you like to maintain them or gain some groups as you transition out of sport? – and this is to try and build multiple identities so they’re not so reliant on that athletic identity.”
