Former All Black Sir John Kirwan will bring the Bledisloe Cup to Invercargill on Monday as part of a national fundraising drive for the school mental health programme he champions.

The trans-Tasman trophy will be on show at the Pirates Old Boys Rugby Club at Surrey Park from 2pm. Families are invited to get a close look at the cup, run through some rugby skills and play games on the day.

The visit is one of 18 regional stops in Mitey's 2026 Drive for Five campaign, which aims to raise $5 million to extend mental health education to more primary and intermediate schools.

Mitey has worked with hundreds of schools since 2021 and says it has reached more than 100,000 children aged five to 13. Another 236 schools are on its waiting list.

The organisation points to figures suggesting roughly one in five young New Zealanders experiences a major mental health challenge by the age of 18.

A ticket to Eden Park

There is a prize on offer for Southland youngsters. Kirwan will pick one or two young participants to travel to Auckland for the Mitey Match, a world record attempt that will put 521 children on the field at Eden Park.

The package includes two tickets to the Bledisloe Cup test at Eden Park on 10 October, return flights, a night's accommodation and a place in the Mitey Match itself.

New Zealand Rugby and Eden Park are backing the campaign.

"We are rallying the ultimate team to get behind Mitey's cause," Kirwan said.

He has described the Mitey Match as more than a game of rugby, framing it as a moment that matches the scale of what the programme is trying to achieve.

Mitey chief executive Sarah Manley acknowledged the size of the goal. "We know $5 million is a bold target," she said, calling on clubs, schools, businesses and fans to contribute.

Her pitch is simple arithmetic: five dollars from a million New Zealanders would get the campaign there, and she has argued that kind of collective effort could create a generational shift in youth mental health.

For Southland rugby followers, Monday offers a rare chance to stand beside the silverware the All Blacks and Wallabies have contested since the early 1930s without leaving the city.

Mitey says the money raised will go towards getting the programme into the hundreds of schools still waiting for it.