I’ve just retired from international sport after 23 years of playing for the Australian lawn bowls team, the Jackaroos. I guess being the veteran of a lawn bowls team is a bit weird at the ripe old age of 46.

Sport’s been my life so I’m certainly finding the transitioning very different. I’ve never known anything else. I’ve never studied anything. So I guess you question your identity.

It’s a bit of a roller-coaster, going from thinking ‘yep, I’m going to be all right’ to ‘I really miss it, I miss the people’. I can totally see how someone could really suffer and let it get them down.

So it’s about keeping busy, signing up for new things, and getting involved in different programs, broadening my horizons and ticking some life boxes in areas I haven’t had the opportunity to try yet.

Mental health is obviously a very prominent subject at the moment, whether it’s within sport or just general life. I think it’s great that we’re actually talking about it now within the community, whereas a few years ago it was still a bit taboo.

I’ve been in some fantastic teams, been to five Commonwealth Games, and I’ve got skills in leadership and team environment and culture and things like that, so hopefully I can put those to good use going forward.