Bad decisions, rehab, and a hard road back, but the sun is rising again for Jamarra

Jamarra Ugle-Hagan acknowledges the missteps he took, the poor decisions made, after the 2024 season, when his life and football career crashed, despite warnings from friends at the Bulldogs that he was keeping the wrong company.

“I wouldn’t say anything went wrong,” said Ugle-Hagan of his time at the Bulldogs, pointedly not blaming his former club. “I just think it was more myself, decisions I made, and me as a stubborn little kid.

“I just thought I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I didn’t think I was affecting anything … I don’t know how to explain it, but just boys would reach out to me and say, ‘Mate, you need to stop hanging out with this person. You need to, you know, look after yourself and come this way’.

“And I’m like, ‘No, it’s fine. It’s all good. Don’t worry about it’. Then before you know it…”

Before he knew it, he wasn’t training or playing. His mental health plummeted. He lost control of his football destiny, and was forced to spend four months in a rehabilitation facility in Byron Bay during 2025.

The AFL, which can stand players down with mental health and/or substance issues, controlled whether he could train at one point in 2025, and wouldn’t let him, which he felt was “a bit over the top”.

He said training then would have helped him. “I think I should have been allowed to show up to training.”

Ugle-Hagan had been seen out and about in Melbourne, and as a highly visible footballer, he was on the public’s watch list. “In Melbourne … everyone could see my life. It was so out in the open.”

Deprived of footy, he had, in his telling, nothing to do. He had forgotten the joy of the game.

“I forgot the feeling of how fun it is and how good it is to be around your mates and family, like friends after games, training sessions in the morning. I kind of took it for granted a little bit, and then now that I lost it, I’ve really had nothing and nothing to do. I have a full day, like, figuring out where, how do I train, what do I do?

“I just felt like I was a bit left in the dumps … obviously looking back at it, I wouldn’t change anything, because it’s actually made me who I am now, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. But it’s also a learning curve, and I made some bad decisions throughout last year, but, yeah, I definitely regret it, but at the end of the day … it’s happened now.

“Now I’m just pretty confident going forward … especially with this club. I feel so much happier. I can be myself a little bit.”

Clubs were interested in 2025, naturally, because of Ugle-Hagan’s immense talent.

Collingwood and Geelong were among those considering him. But only one club embraced the 2020 No.1 pick wholeheartedly, and could offer what Victorian clubs could not – an escape, both from the questionable company he kept, and from recognition in public places.

Two hours with Damien Hardwick at the triple premiership coach’s then home in Melbourne was a critical step in Ugle-Hagan’s journey back to the AFL and happiness.

The Gold Coast Suns coach told Ugle-Hagan that he would back him, so long as he was truthful. The coach had made a similar with pact with a young Tigers player who went on to astonishing heights: Dustin Martin.

“I just fell in love with Damien,” Ugle-Hagan said.

“It’s just unbelievable. As soon as he introduced [himself to] me, he just said to me that, ‘Mate, no matter what … you don’t lose talent. And that’s the one thing we back’.”

Hardwick told Ugle-Hagan, “I’m gonna back you, you just got to be honest and trustworthy … and tell me everything”.

Hardwick had invoked Martin as a positive role model, as one who’d had troubles but was always truthful.

“So he just said, ‘Dusty was always honest with me, always getting the respect and the trust’… and then I’ve just done that this whole time, since being here.

“And one time I said to Dimma, like, ‘I don’t want to come in today.’ And he goes, ‘Mate, just come in and it’s OK’ … I said, ‘I’ve rocked up.’ And he’s like, ‘Man, I’m just so proud of you for coming in’.”

Ugle-Hagan, an assured and candid speaker, has relished the Suns’ honesty sessions – which Hardwick had been a part of at Richmond – in which players shared their stories.

“We do this session where we personally open up to the group … the whole staff and players, and we speak about, like, some personal stuff that no one should know. And I think that just brings us together as a closer group, and you don’t get judged as a character. Everyone’s themselves.”

Ugle-Hagan had experienced a version of exposing himself and his traumas to others at the Byron Bay facility.

“I’ve done a lot of work for myself … I did four months there, I was doing three classes a day for four weeks on just mental life, I don’t know, balance, triggers, self-control – all that stuff.”

Did Ugle-Hagan think the sessions in Byron Bay worked?

“If you buy into it, it does. When I first got there, I was just, like, ‘Mate, this a waste of time, sitting here listen to other people’s problems’. And then I actually was like, ‘No, I’m just gonna give it everything’. And now I still use those tools to fix myself.

“I journal a lot. Yeah, write stuff down. Just ways to solve stuff … because footy is a lot of pressure to just perform.”

Another critical event in Ugle-Hagan’s comeback was the restoration of his relationship with his partner, Liv Kelly, with whom he had broken up with in Melbourne after two or three years together, in what he says was a poor decision.

In a serendipitous turn of events, Liv had moved to the Gold Coast following their break-up. After first living for a month with Hardwick and the coach’s partner Alex, he stayed with Gold Coast’s vaunted Indigenous development officer and ex-player Jarrod Harbrow. More recently, he has shacked up with Liv. He called her “his safe place to get away from everything.”

“She moved to Gold Coast, and then I somehow got with Gold Coast. Like, it’s crazy.”

What happened? “Well, we were together for … only two years beforehand. [I] never screwed up. Then I had that bad year last year, and then Gold Coast wanted me, and we just got back together … it’s like, meant to be.”

Jamarra described breaking up with Liv as “probably the worst decision I’ve ever made”, albeit it was part of his maturation.

“I kind of needed to mature and go through stuff individually to become who I am now. But for her to come back and give me, to give us another opportunity to, you know, be together, is massive. Because she’s like my rock … she’s understands me, we just get along. She’s my best friend, like she’s my right eye.”

Ugle-Hagan has recovered to the point that he says he ran two kilometres in six minutes and 32 seconds, compared to 7.15 (minutes) last year with the Bulldogs, when he had been prevented from training by the AFL. His fitness is on the mend.

“I had to get ticked off to physically train and mentally be prepared to just to train … which is a crazy thing because I need football to actually be mentally well and feel good about myself,” he said.

“So as soon as that was taken away from the decisions I made … it’s just a very hard thing. I don’t know how to explain. It was very tough.

“I felt like it was a bit over the top. I think that I should have just been allowed to show up to training because then, when I got told not to train, everyone thought it was my decision not to come in, but it was actually the AFL’s.”

Ugle-Hagan had discussed Geelong as a possibility with Bailey Smith, his mate from their Dog days.

“I was talking to Bailey Smith about it a lot, but I think it was a great thing [going to the Suns]. I think everything works out for a reason.”

No longer on close to a million dollars – he’s paid only a fraction of that last Dogs deal – Ugle-Hagan has a trigger for next year if he plays a certain number of games. But he says Hardwick has made plain that he sees him as a long-term player.

He said Hardwick recognised he wouldn’t play his best football in his first year back.

“I just want to bring back my marking … I’m just dropping little things, easy things that I usually take, but I think I’m just too excited to be out there,” Ugle-Hagan explained.

The other critical component that the Suns offered, in addition to relative anonymity, Hardwick’s support – and the happenstance of Liv’s presence and return to his life – was one of the AFL’s largest contingents of Indigenous players (five).

Ugle-Hagan, the second-eldest of six Noongar-Gunditjmara-Djab Wurrung siblings from Framlingham near Warrnambool, ultimately had only Artie Jones and Ryley Sanders at the Bulldogs with Indigenous heritage for company. The Dogs didn’t have an elder statesman such as Eddie Betts. On the day of Sir Doug Nicholls Round, in Darwin, he appreciates the First Nations fraternity.

“You’ve got all these other players, [Hawk] Jarman Impey – we never had anyone that’s already gone through the AFL system at the Doggies. So we didn’t really have anyone to lean on. We’re just leaning on each other and up here … I can relate to all this and all black Darwin boys, you know, it’s f—ing amazing.”

Ugle-Hagan has finally found sanctuary.

“I feel like I’ve always had a story ever since I was 17 – people always write about me,” he said, noting premature comparison to champion Lance Franklin.

“That’s not an arrogant way [to describe it]. It’s just like I feel that, even last year, I was probably the most talked-about player and I didn’t even play a game.”

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