By Rob Cole

There will be many reasons for Wales Hockey stalwart Dave Kettle to be cheerful this weekend as he becomes the latest sporting centurion in Poland.

Hot on the heels of their heroics at the Commonwealth Games, the Welsh men’s team are facing the Poles in a three Test series. In the opening match, Kettle will become the third Wales goalkeeper to reach three figures and, by Sunday, he should have taken over from Chris Ashcroft as the most capped goalie with 102 caps.

Austin Savage was the first Welsh goalkeeper to reach three figures and then Ashcroft surpassed him. Now Kettle, who made his debut in 2009, will go past them both.

It is a landmark that the 30-year-old could have reached much earlier had he not taken time out of the international arena last year to help with his long battle against depression. He outlined his difficulties in a Dan Roan, of BBC Sport, last month as part of World Mental Health Awareness Week.

“After the Commonwealth Games in 2014 I realised that something wasn’t quite right, I kind of addressed it a little bit through professionals, but just carried on and didn’t really seek any help outside of that,” Kettle told Roan in a very open and frank interview.

“When it got really bad last year I decided to seek help and I withdrew from international sport. But what I found after that is the support for athletes and coaches and everyone is a bit lacking at the moment.

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“I think everybody wants to help, but we don’t necessarily know how to help. So it’s great that more athletes are coming out and talking about it.

“I don’t think the support around that is probably keeping pace with the athletes that are coming out and talking about it. It was pretty bad and, for me, it was getting quite serious to the point where I wasn’t sleeping at all and I was really struggling.

“I think, yeah, it did get to that point [of having suicidal thoughts]. You don’t really know how far it’s got until you get to that point and that’s probably the point where you think I really need to seek some help here.

“It was just relentless, absolutely relentless. It just kept coming and kept coming and when you thought it was going away it would come harder and harder. For me that translated into my sleep, I just couldn’t sleep at all – you do just feel so alone, you feel like no one understands.”

Kettle recovered in time to take his place in the squad that did so well at the Commonwealth Games in Australia and is now looking forward to next year’s European Championships having helped Wales get promoted to the top section.

“Mental health is quite complicated, quite difficult to understand, and I think the more support that can be given to coaches, to athletes, to National Governing Bodies, the better,” added Kettle.

“I was working at a pretty high-pressured job, competing at an elite level, I was captain of my country – all the usual triggers that you associate with depression, I didn’t have. I was financially stable, had good friends, a good family, but it was something a lot deeper than that.

“What was frustrating was that when I actually did come out and talk about it, because of the lack of understanding, people just took that as you can’t handle the pressure or you can’t handle the stress.”