JOHN KIRWAN INTERVIEW: The All Black pin-up boy had a hidden torment as he dominated the world rugby stage, writes JOHNNY WATTERSON

HE WAS the showy whizz kid from a less showy era. If he was Sonny Bill Williams or Corey Jane and in his day he was, John Kirwan would have done the underpants ads.

His 6ft 3in frame would have fearlessly modelled the Y-fronts; the folded arms, the ever so snug fit, the airbrushed abs, the vaguely distressed smile and the hair combed the way it never was in real life. He would have done it all and he would have worn the golden boots too.

Through Irish eyes in the 1980s, Kirwan’s sun-bleached hair and All Black uniform charging up field from a restart was like a godly affirmation of All Black superiority.

If they’d practised eugenics we’d have loved the odious. If they’d battery-housed fair-haired couples and stole their babies for rugby supremacy we’d have heartlessly cheered depravity. In those days of terrestrial television and occasional tours, Kirwan was an exotic.

They were a domineering sovereignty in the game with their perfection, their All Black authority and a run of two solid years without defeat.

In there was Kirwan, one of the strutting lieutenants.

Variously described as the best World Cup try, footage of the right wing’s run against Italy in the 1987 tournament has been put to music, re-edited, slowed down and in one clip rechristened as Kirwan’s try from “the edge of the world all the way down town”.

In a jaw-dropping run brimming with optimism rarely seen any more, Kirwan charged through the scrambling but dense cover of Italians, jinking, side-stepping, shrugging them off like a movie version of a “real” try, almost too audacious to be authentic. Defenders fell off, miss-timed, were wrong-footed, too slow, badly positioned, shabby tacklers or simply transfixed by the New Zealander.

The try is a jewel and personification of his ability among the blizzard of bald records and milestones. The glimpses back put him in context as a player who was in 1986-88 considered better even than Australia’s mercurial David Campese.

He was the first All Black to reach 50 Tests. His try rate at Test level was better than one every two matches, 35 in 63 games. During New Zealand’s 23 Tests unbeaten run from 1987-1990, Kirwan scored 10 tries in five Tests against Wales and Australia.

Today, though, he steps back from all that historical froth.

“We had a much better time,” he says. “The amateur days were party really. We won the World Cup in ’87 because we’d been to the gym. No one else did. We had a fitness trainer.

“It was much better fun. Less discipline. We didn’t have to get up and do rehab. We’d a six pack of Steinlager in the changing room. Half the team smoked. I think they’d (pros) love to come and do what we did.

“I’ve heaps of admiration for these modern players. The game is tougher, faster and stronger, more pressure on them off the field.”

Confessing to having oval-shaped blood cells and whitewash coursing his veins, his stints as coach of Italy and more recently Japan in the last World Cup keep him close to the game. But there is a hesitancy, or, perhaps just a need to make the point.

“We are a humble sport,” he says. “I don’t care how much money you throw you always remember where you come from. Administrators need to be aware as we get more money, more fame and as the boots keep changing colour and people keep investing and yes, the underpants. That stuff is great for the players. But we have to keep giving back, make sure we keep the hand shaking going. Keep those traditions where you just smash someone on the football field but you can shake hands afterwards.

“I would have loved to have been out there playing (in the last World Cup). Would I have made it? Who knows? Would I be good enough for today’s game. It’s a tough one.”

Giving back. Keeping well. Looking after your health is a theme with Kirwan. In some eyes he is a walking oxymoron, a paradox. The De La Salle-educated boy from Mangere, Auckland, lived the rugby dream but struggled with the ordinary.

Growing up in a butcher’s shop in the mid-’70s, he had never been out of New Zealand, never had a glass of wine, didn’t know what pasta was.

There was no need with rugby filling every void. “I ate meat, three veggies,” he says. “Dad would have a beer at the end of every day. I would pour his beer for him. Then I flew out to Italy in ’86. It was like shit, where’s this been all along? I never left.”

Kirwan was moving towards the heady years, New Zealand’s world dominance and at a personal level recognition that with the new muscular brand of rugby he was the market leader at what he did.

Along the way he also began to experience shuddering collapses in his sense of well-being. As his fame increased his reason and control perished. He panicked for no comprehensible reason. He sweated in his car. He imagined catastrophe where there was none.

He removed himself from the company of his team-mates and colleagues to privately face blinding episodes of panic and anxiety. The paralysing fear and disturbing nature of the attacks was compounded by the fear of not knowing what was happening.

The striker, the goalscorer in the best rugby team in the world was breaking down. In the uncomplaining, manly world of 1980s All Black rugby Kirwan’s sense of isolation accelerated. It wasn’t an issue of compassion among team-mates and friends but one of incomprehension and also disbelief.

Hilarity and disapproval was as much in evidence as empathy. All Blacks don’t have mental issues. The perfect physical specimen, the try-scoring machine had contracted the sissy gene. Why else stay in bed all day crying?

He understands now. He knows he could line himself up with Celtic boss Neil Lennon, Olympic gold medallist Kelly Holmes, England cricketer Marcus Trescothick, heavyweight boxer Frank Bruno or the tragic German goalkeeper Robert Enke.

But that was then.

“Shit, yeah, it totally affected my rugby,” he says. “How many times have you heard ‘shit I sat next to him in the office and he committed suicide and I didn’t even know he was sick?’ I managed to manage. Some people can’t manage. I managed to play Test rugby.

“I remember a massive attack playing against France in 1990 during the match. I wanted to get out of there . . . You just don’t want to be where you are . . . in a match . . . I was on the wing . . . I dropped the ball on the blindside and continued to have an anxiety attack. What it did was eat away at my self-confidence and self-esteem.

“I didn’t know what it was. No one really knew what to do. I was in really bad shape. What happened . . .? Well I was having anxiety attacks.

“I thought I was going to end up in an institution. I had a real fear I was going crazy.

“My first one had been just after I’d just won the World Cup. I was doing a TV show the morning after. I had a glass of champagne, went down into my car and had a massive attack for 10 minutes sweating , panicking, shaking. I was scared I was going to ram the car into a wall.

“I went home, went to sleep, woke up and thought, ‘oh it must have been drinking in the morning’, and ignored it. Then I had some more.

“One day I got up and it didn’t go away. I looked in the mirror. John Kirwan wasn’t there anymore.

“It was 1989, right at the top of my career . . . 1989 . . . 1989 . . . In ’87 we won the World Cup. We didn’t lose for two years. In ’88 we had a fantastic tour to Australia. Then 1989. The wheels started falling off.

“I hit the wall. I was in there deep for two years. I fought it like a fitness session but I wasn’t getting better.

“I mean I’d been through Chris Wiley’s training . . .”

Recently the All Blacks invited Japan to their dressingroom when Kirwan was the Asian side’s coach. His 12-year-old son had asked him to get Sonny Bill’s autograph. He didn’t like asking but hell it was his boy.

Sonny Bill took the program and went around the entire team. Every name was signed.

Kirwan was struck by the gesture.

Humble Sonny Bill; his father’s beer in the evening; the butcher’s shop where he grew up. He respects humility, believes rugby will stay safe if that impulse beats.

He once left the game for 12 months after coaching Italy in 2005. But he was drawn back when he was told about a player called Christian Cullen.

He went and watched and saw in Cullen something compelling. It flipped a switch. He remains besotted.

Now he calls himself an unemployed coach at 47 years old. The black dog of depression is no longer off the leash. He’s in good shape. He won’t be at the Aviva Stadium today but in Italy, where he lives, sharing a television studio with Miss Italy. That’s how they do rugby.

“We went back for an ’87 reunion,” he says. “At the beginning of the evening I said to Andy Earl ‘givus a man hug’. He says ‘no mate, I’m not giving you a man hug I might catch that depression you’ve got’.

“At the end of the night I managed to get a man hug. But that was a hard case.”

Kirwan’s big shoulders rise and he shrugs.

“I’m a butcher from Mangere. He’s a farmer . . .”

KIRWAN ON BEING LINKED WITH MUNSTER, ULSTER

"The thing that is a little bit of a concern is that every time there is a job available my name gets attached to it. That's a good thing and a bad thing. I want to coach a very good rugby team. I'd love to coach a big European club or a national side in the top eight. I've finished with Japan. I had a great time. I coached Italy for four years, Japan for six and I want to keep growing as a coach.

"A side like Ulster or Munster are both fantastic. What they have got in mind I don't know. Certainly talking to them would be an honour for me . . . or another national side. I am just trying to be patient, which is not one of my strengths, sitting back and waiting for the right opportunity. I am really keen to win some stuff with a good side.

"No, I've had no contact (with Ulster or Munster) and haven't searched out the contacts. I believe that they'll have someone in mind. If my name is one of them, fine. I think it (Munster) would be one of the most sought after jobs in the world. Munster is a top-line club probably looking to win big trophies again. They are always there or thereabouts, a great team with fantastic players. For me it's about the right opportunity and the right club and making sure they have the right structures in place to win some football."