Mario Fenech wife reveals how the sporting legend would come home upset after being continually mocked about his dementia.
Mario Fenech : Brain | Wife | Daughter | Brother
Fenech is a Maltese Australian rugby league personality. He is a former player of the game who had a lengthy career in the New South Wales/Australian Rugby League in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Personal information
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| Born | 11 November 1961 Valletta, Malta |
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Playing information
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| Position | Hooker, Prop, Second-row |
His favoured position was as hooker, where he represented New South Wales in State of Origin. In his later career, he became a prop-forward.
A legendary figure for the South Sydney Rabbitohs, he captained the club for five seasons from 1986 to 1990.
Fenech was living in the Botany region of Sydney at the time of his childhood. His family believed he had the potential to become a great footballer and that his junior team, the Botany Rams, would not allow him to fulfill these aspirations, so then transferred him to the Mascot Juniors club, as many champion South Sydney players of that era were Mascot Juniors.
Mario fenech Brain
The whisper around rugby league was that “The Falcon” wasn’t in a good way. That the brain damage he suffered during a brutal rugby league career was starting to really take hold.
Fenech is speaking to Fairfax Media for two reasons: to allay fears about his health, and also hammer home the importance of the strict concussion rules the NRL will again enforce this season.
Two years ago, he admitted publicly he had suffered brain damage during his 15 seasons of first grade, mostly for Souths and then North Sydney. Since then, and especially in the past few months, there has been speculation about his heath.
In the past eight months, having sought the advice of his former doctor at the Rabbitohs, Nathan Gibbs, and then St Vincent’s neurologist Susan Tomlinson, his life has improved dramatically since being prescribed Aricept, a drug commonly used to treat dementia.
“It’s changed my life,” Fenech, 54, says. “I’m a lot better now. I’ve travelled some hard roads, but I’m optimistic about the way my brain functions. Basically, I take a tablet every evening before I go to bed. What that does is provide my brain with subliminal fluid, to settle it down.
The problem I have is irritation because of the brain injuries. Brains react in different ways. Mine gets irritated, so this settles my brain down like an anti-inflammatory. My memory is better. I feel blessed. Because you get worried, mate.”
Wife
The wife of rugby league legend Mario Fenech has revealed that he would come home ‘p***** off’ after being continuously mocked on the NRL Footy Show in the wake of his very public battle with early onset dementia.
The 60-year-old is one of the most popular figures in the sport, but the former Rabbitohs icon’s wife Rebecca Fenech has revealed that he was resentful for always being the butt of jokes on the long-running program.
Fenech, who was diagnosed with early onset dementia seven years ago at age 53, was treated by the Channel 9 show as comedic figure and an object of ridicule.
Mrs Fenech said the show continued to make fun of her husband despite having full awareness of his devastating condition.
‘They [The Footy Show] took the mickey out of him where, really, he’s a very intelligent man – but that’s the way it rolled,’ Mrs Fenech told Channel 7.
‘He wasn’t a boy’s boy because he didn’t gamble, he didn’t go and have a beer after the show. So I suppose it isolated him a little bit from those people.’
Daughter
Ben Fordham has slammed a false rumour implicating NRL legend Mario Fenech’s daughter in an illegal house party.
About 60 people are believed to have attended a Maroubra house party in breach of health orders, resulting in over 80 positive COVID cases.
Ben Fordham has contacted Fenech’s daughter, Bonnie, who is distraught about a rumour claiming she hosted or attended the party.
“Everyone is talking about it in her neck of the woods,” Ben said.
“Stop spreading rumours, they are absolute lies!”
Mario fenech brother
Stephen Fenech is the brother of Mario Fenech.
Fenech was diagnosed with early onset dementia at the age of just 53, when specialists said he was suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
CTE is a progressively debilitating brain condition caused by repeated blows to the head and consistent episodes of concussion. It’s irreversible and, at worst, fatal.
Now 60, Fenech has the brain of an ‘80-year-old patient’.
He – and many other ex-athletes like ex-Essendon Bombers ruck John Barnes and the late St Kilda great Danny Frawley – has had to swallow the sobering reality of the condition.
“To be honest, I remember when I was playing football, I got smashed around the head all the time and it had a real bad effect on me,” Fenech told 7NEWS Spotlight.
“You feel like you’re going pop, and it affects your brain. It affects your brain.
“There are times I get really bad, just anxiety stuff,” he said. “It’s not much fun to have a brain damage, mate, because I literally forget things like that.”