"Sir John Kirwan"
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What is Sir John Kirwan’s Drive for Five fundraising campaign and why is it important for kids’ mental health?
The Agenda Podcast, the home of sporting nonsense and claptrap. Brought to you by Export Ultra.
Rightio, Tony. It's an absolute pleasure to welcome into the Agenda Podcast in the ACC studio Sir John Kirwan, and he's brought himself along a little friend.
Just a little friend sitting between us. And, John, honestly, I feel like a kid on Christmas. Obviously, having you here is great. I mean, of course. You lied straight away.
You could not give a toss about me. But
the Bledisloe Cup is right here.
You've been looking at the Bledisloe Cup, you've brushed me, and I've been the second thought saying, oh, and JK's here
as well. I shook your hand vigorously when you came
in.
You know, you're not nothing, mate. You're not dog-tucker around
here. But I am compared to the Lord Bledisloe Cup. Yeah,
it's actually more impressive in person than you kind of realise. She's a heavy old girl. Jeez, it's seen some things. Look at the, because usually. The chips on the base are genuinely concerning. There's some like giant abrasions around here where you've got to wonder what happened to it.
Well, the interesting thing is the lettuce low is not attached to the base. Yes. So the base gets relatively more abuse.
Yeah. You know what I mean?
Like
you're
picking up the cup, you're pouring beers into it,
you're drinking it, you're celebrating.
That just gets discarded. Yeah, and the wooden thing falls over
and
everyone panics.
How does Sir John Kirwan describe his personal mental‑health journey and the moment he realized he needed help?
Yeah.
Yeah, I noticed that the lid is actually slightly loose, like you can kind of clunk it around. And do they factor that in when they do the lift so you don't get the punishing lift and then the lid flies off and hits a prop in the head? They take the base and the
lid away
because
it could be health and safety issues.
Now, you've been let loose with this letters like that for the next
two
weeks. Yeah. What's going on?
So I have a charity, John Cohen Foundation. We have Mighty, which is a mental health education curriculum in primary schools. And we are doing a drive for five. So we're looking to raise $5 million. What we're doing is we're travelling through the country with... With the blood is low. With the Lord. With the Lord. We're going into communities. And so we're going right through the country. So jump online and come and join us at the community events. And then we're finishing with the biggest game of rugby ever. before the Bledisloe Cup. So 525 kids will be playing against All Blacks and a whole lot of other people. And it will be the biggest game of rugby ever.
I mean, the All Blacks are going to carve up. This is unfair. You've got children, 500 kids. I mean, you know, match for, you know, you've got a Simon Parker up there just storming through children, kicking them off like Godzilla. No, he will be cut down by 50
kids.
Yeah, that's true actually. It's
just the numbers game. But
I think
the whole thing
is, you know, it's giving these kids the opportunity to be part of the Bledisloe. The All Blacks are supporting Mighty, so they're supporting the Drive for Five, which is amazing. They love the project that we're doing. They love getting out into the community. Our goal is to go through the country. We'll be doing the community events. We'll be choosing a couple of kids, and if the kids raise $50, they'll go into a draw, and we'll fly them to Auckland to
be
part of the giant match. And the goal, people, is to raise $5 million. It's called the Drive for Five. And the reason we're doing that is, you know, there's 1,400 schools in New Zealand. We're currently in 300 schools. And we have got 250 schools on the waiting list. So that money is being raised so that we can continue to roll out mental health education for our tamariki.
It's so important as well. I think of when I was at school, which this might surprise you, it actually wasn't that long ago. And, you know, 20 years. But there was never any talk of this sort of thing. I can't even imagine anyone at any stage saying, saying mental health even as a sentence. And you think of how far we've come and I guess how far we've got to go. So I guess it's such an important thing to fold back in and think of teaching young people.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is Sir John Kirwan’s Drive for Five fundraising campaign and why is it important for kids’ mental health?
0:00–1:15
2
How does Sir John Kirwan describe his personal mental‑health journey and the moment he realized he needed help?
1:15–5:29
3
What is the worst memory Sir John Kirwan has of playing in an All Blacks jersey?
5:29–6:45
4
What life‑changing advice did Sir John Kirwan receive from a French coach while training in Italy?
6:45–10:58
5
How does the Bledisloe Cup feature in the Drive for Five tour and why is it a focal point for the kids?
10:58–13:08
6
Why does Sir John Kirwan wear glasses on stage and what does he say about them?
13:08–16:46
7
What practical tools does the Mighty mental‑health curriculum give to primary‑school children?
16:46–20:31
8
How can listeners support the Drive for Five and help improve New Zealand’s mental‑health statistics?
20:31–22:56