“I just want to feel like how I used to feel after games,” the Magpies midfielder, Adam Treloar, reveals in the upcoming documentary, Collingwood: From The Inside Out. “I walk off, just borderline in tears.”

In a scene where Treloar discusses his on-going struggle with anxiety, he gives filmmaker Josh Cable unprecedented access to document the session with Jacqui Louder, the club’s sport and exercise psychologist, in which he describes his inner turmoil.

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“I was just worried about everything, what was thought about us, and me and stuff like that where before… I reckon every game I’d walk off satisfied that, if we lost, I was disappointed we’d lost, but satisfied that I went out there, I got through the game. I contributed. I played my role. When I was walking off this year, I wasn’t even thinking about any of that.”

The film, co-directed by Cable and Marcus Cobbledick and produced by Good Thing Productions – the team behind the Adam Goodes documentary The Australian Dream – focuses on the club’s 2018 season that saw the team reach the AFL grand final. After not playing finals in four years, the club defied the odds to end their wait but went on to lose by five points to West Coast Eagles.

The on-field performance of the club during that season, and the heartbreak of losing a grand final, becomes a side note in the film, as Cable and Cobbledick aim to portray a more universal human story. Treloar’s personal battle is one such narrative depicted and one that only came out during the process of filming the documentary.

“When I started following him, I just knew he was a gun player and I wanted to get to know him a bit more,” Cable says. “One game day I was following him. He played well – was best on ground – and after the game he shared this moment with Bucks [coach Nathan Buckley] where they hugged and I thought, ‘Oh that’s really interesting, I’ll ask him about that’.

“We go back to his house and he revealed to me that he’d been struggling with anxiety and it had been a real challenge for him to get up and play every week. It was really surprising. Here’s this amazing player who, if you’re just watching him play on the weekend, you would have no idea what he’s going through personally.”

The documentary details how the Collingwood Football Club addressed the need to change their culture from, as Buckley refers to it at the beginning of the film, “a chest-beating club”. 2018 All-Australian Brodie Grundy recalls the club environment leading into the season as “an up swell of people not happy in their workplace”.

Changes had to be made. Cable says “what was special about what Bucks and the club were able to do was create an environment where people felt comfortable enough to be vulnerable around each other. That is so powerful in allowing people to be mentally healthy. If Adam didn’t feel comfortable in that environment, he would have suffered in silence and who knows what would have happened with him and his story.”

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Addressing mental health issues is becoming a key area of focus in the sporting industry with the AFL considering it one of its biggest concerns. This adjustment of club culture by Collingwood leading into the 2018 season also now appears to be providing more opportunities to support those at the club who are struggling. Midfielder Dayne Beams, who has had ongoing problems with his mental health, recently announced his indefinite leave from the game with the full support of the club and coach.

Cable believes the changes implemented by the club last season have continued to allow a safe space for players to confront these issues in healthy ways. “There are a number of things the club did, which we talk about in the documentary, that involve sharing of stories and opening the environment up for conversation and showing that it’s OK to not be OK.”

For Cable, this is the universal message of the film and one that he believes has a broader appeal to more than just Collingwood fans, or even football fans. “What this documentary shows, it’s a story about how a club changed its culture but the club is essentially a workplace, it’s a little community, so the lessons there about how to manage people in that community and make them feel safe, that’s something that translates to any sort of environment.”

Collingwood: From the Inside Out premiers at The Melbourne International Film Festival on August 15 and will be screened on ABC at 9.30pm AEST on 3 September.