The Bangalow Bowlo has hosted its fair share of comic acts, but few would have provoked the raucous hilarity that NRL ‘super ref’ Bill Harrigan managed on Friday.
Harrigan was one of three rugby league legends telling tall, and frequently scandalous, tales of their battles on and off the field to an audience of 130 men who had gathered for a fundraising lunch event designed to promote awareness of mental health in the region.
Harrigan was joined by former Balmain Tigers second-row forward, Paul Sironen, and North Sydney Bears and Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles prop forward, Don McKinnon, as speakers at the three-course lunch, the ‘entertainment’ drawcard for an event with a deadly serious purpose – highlighting the declining mental health of men in NSW.
Organised by the Bangalow Men’s Shed, Lions Club and NSW Police, the lunch was kicked off by Detective Inspector Craig Erickson, who provided some alarming statistics. In the first six months of 2024 there were 467 suicides recorded in NSW – 359, or nearly 77 per cent of them, men.
‘It’s dire, a massive health issue, affecting the family, the community and everybody involved,’ Det Insp Erickson said. First responders are among those profoundly affected: in the last financial year, NSW police attended almost 70,000 mental health related incidents across the state, 2,664 of them locally, said the 31-year police veteran.
Men needed to ‘own’ the reality of their situation, Det Insp Erickson said. ‘As blokes, we need to raise our awareness and reduce the stigma around poor mental health; learn to recognise the symptoms, reach out to our mates before their anxiety and sleep disorders worsen into illnesses such as high blood pressure and heart problems.’ By the time it’s physical, it’s very hard to treat, he said.
Talk to your mates
The event is part of an ongoing program encouraging connection between men called ‘Talk to Your Mates’, run by Bangalow Men’s Shed. President David Noakes said several attendees had spoken about how moved they had been by it, with one disclosing to him a family secret that he’d kept for 30 years.
‘We hope to see more of that,’ Mr Noakes said.
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