Erin McKinnon will be at tomorrow night's Spud's Game: A Match for Mental Health as a goal umpire for the evening's preceding curtain raiser, but there's far more to her appearance than just waving the flags.

Spud's Game: A Match for Mental Health will be held tomorrow evening between St Kilda and Brisbane at Marvel Stadium, with the prime-time fixture encouraging fans and the wider community to show up to both honour the late St Kilda great Danny 'Spud' Frawley and raise funds for mental health initiatives run out of the Danny Frawley Centre.

It's a cause close and occasion to McKinnon's heart. Dealing with mental ill-health has been a part of her life since high school, but it wasn't until her AFLW career at GWS began that she started to realise exactly what it was she was going through.  

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"For a majority of that time I didn't understand what I was experiencing or how to manage it," McKinnon, an ambassador for Spud's Game said in the lead-up to the match.

"It wasn't until a few years into AFLW during a vulnerability session that some of my older teammates opened up about their experiences with mental health that I began to understand that I was actually part of the silent majority.

It was freeing. It validated everything I was experiencing and from there allowed me to seek help and develop protective mental health habits that I continue to this day.

- Erin McKinnon

McKinnon is one of three St Kilda AFLW players working out of the Danny Frawley Centre, working alongside Olivia Vesely and Grace Kelly to help facilitate better mental health outcomes for the community.

2 in 5 Australians will experience a mental health disorder in their lifetime, with Spud’s Game serving as the vehicle to bring the difficult conversations surrounding mental ill-health to the fore while also honouring Frawley’s legacy.

In its first year of operation, the Danny Frawley Centre delivered over 200 mental health programs in its inaugural year, directly engaging over 8000 people ranging from young athletes, corporates and members of the community. 

St Kilda's AFL side will face Brisbane in the third iteration of Spud's Game: A Match for Mental Health this Friday night at 7:50pm, with the Spud's Game Curtain Raiser featuring McKinnon behind the goals kicking off at 7:20pm.

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