I didn't know Terry Newton particularly well because, even though he was at Wigan when I spent a week training and playing a game for the Warriors back in 2001, he and a few other senior players were being rested for the Boxing Day derby against St Helens. But I still took the news yesterday of his suicide surprisingly badly. Yes, he was a drugs cheatwho went over the top on occasions with his tackling, but tohang himself at the age of 31 years with two children and a wife to mourn his loss is a very tragic end to an increasingly tragic story. The hooker had been deeply depressed by the death of his younger sister, Leanne, to pneumonialast year and then, after becoming the first person in world sport to receive a two-year ban for testing positive to human growth hormone, by the loss of playing rugby league. Only now does the sporting world realise just how depressed he had become. Today the reaction is mixed.Rugby league has lost one of its stars, albeit a shamed star. Some have criticised Newton for selfishly leaving behind a young family. All I know is that a still young man was found hanging in a house yesterday and that he must havenosedived tothe very depths of despair to take such a decision. If ever anyone in sport is even contemplating taking drugs just remember Terry Newton, a man who had everything insport, and lost first sport, and then the will to live.
