AFL star Dale Thomas opens up about the ‘$400,000 worth of counselling’ he needed to recover from an embarrassing on-field incident

Football star Dale Thomas has revealed he needed $400,000 in therapy and three years to recover from an embarrassing on-field incident.

The former Carlton star and Collingwood champion, who retired in 2019 after 258 AFL games, has spoken about a simple shot on goal he missed in his seventh game for the Blues and the devastating impact it had on him.

“When I first played for Carlton I had a shot (on goal) against Collingwood, 35 metres out. I’d never had that much confidence in passing the ball back and shooting it, but I didn’t make the distance, I messed it up somehow,” Thomas explained to Triple M.

‘I think it took me three years and about $400,000 of AFLPA coaching to get my confidence back in my shot on goal.

‘I was a player who never had a problem – I missed goals, no worries.

‘(But) that played on my mind, I had sleepless nights about it. The first time I’ve been really upset about something.

“If there was a hole and a shovel, I would have kept digging. I wanted to get off the field, it was dirty.”

Thomas said the incident haunted him for a long time.

The football legend said he was haunted by the miss for a long time

“I think it was the first time I failed the ultimate test,” he said.

‘I’ve had a lot of moments in my career, and you don’t always take them, but you prepare yourself in a way that you can. And at that moment I really blew it and I was embarrassed.

It has haunted me for a long time.

‘You can’t get around it. It was just in my head after all.’

In 2023, Thomas admitted that he had to undergo radical treatment during the Covid pandemic to counter the rapid weight gain after his retirement.

The sudden halt to professional training and the enforced lethargy of Covid lockdowns saw Thomas gain 30 pounds – and his friends let him know all about it.

“Yeah, I was happy to be the butt of a few jokes, but ultimately it does take its toll,” he told Channel Seven.

“No matter how hard I worked, I just couldn’t do it.”

Thomas revealed he “really hated” football in the years leading up to his retirement when he appeared on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in 2020.

The former Magpies and Blues star consulted medical specialists who recommended a ‘metabolic reset’, which involves one injection a day as part of a tailored weight loss programme.

Thomas said it took three years and about $400,000 in therapy to regain the confidence he had before

His medication consists of a hormone that is already produced in the intestines and that ensures that his stomach empties more slowly, making him feel full for longer.

The injection also affects the reward center in the brain to help curb food cravings and reduce the weight your body naturally tries to maintain.

Since this drastic change, Thomas has lost 10 kg and is back to his original playing weight.

“Genetics play a huge role in weight loss, which I’ve never understood. When you’ve been a professional athlete for a long time, you just expect that if you gain weight, you train harder and you lose weight,” he said.

‘It’s no surprise that when you gain 25-30 pounds, something has to change. For many of us, Covid has made it a case of eating our feelings away – or at least I did.

‘The only time I’ve ever experienced weight gain was after playing professional sports. Training so much over the weeks and years, it was never really a problem.

‘From what you consider to be out of shape or not performing at your peak [when being a professional athlete] than how it looks now after my career, it’s completely different.’