Family man: 'Rock bottom' to inspiring others

"I went on a big journey to figure myself out and never to put myself in the position I did through alcohol."

Peter Mirrielees with his wife Julie and four kids after playing in the 2021 Dunedin club rugby final.

On the face of it, life was pretty good for Peter Mirrielees in 2010.

The former Southland Boys’ High School pupil was living in Dunedin earning some money as a semi-professional rugby player.

In fact, he was Otago’s first choice NPC hooker at that time - ahead of future All Black Liam Coltman in the pecking order.

He was also about to crack the big time.

Highlanders coaches Jamie Joseph and Tony Brown had offered him a Super Rugby contract. He was living out many rugby kids’ dream readying himself for life as a fulltime professional athlete.

That was before he broke Otago’s team protocols through alcohol. Then came silence from Joseph and Brown. That contract interest vanished.

It was a conversation with Brown years later that painted a somewhat sobering picture as to what Mirrielees had given up.

“I talked to Tony a couple of years later and he said; ‘it was your drinking’,” Mirrielees recalls.

Deep down the former Otago hooker says he knew the reason behind his Highlanders snub prior to that conversation. However, he was somewhat in denial that he had a problem with alcohol. He admits he regularly blacked out during heavy drinking sessions.

“I suppose it was the [drinking] culture we were brought up in as well. And the culture has changed, that was probably the point where it drew a line in the sand and it did change. The stuff we got up to is unheard of these days.”

“For me to lose a Highlanders contract, and my rugby career, I swore I wasn’t going to lose my family. I went on a big journey to figure myself out and never to put myself in the position I did through alcohol.

“You’ve just got to live and learn, and in some way, it might have been a blessing in disguise.”

“It had a lot to do with family stresses, emotional stresses that I didn’t think existed until a professional actually pointed them out.”

“For me, I had decisions to make with what was going on in my life…..I got myself a good corner with people around me and made steps each day.”

“It’s nearly a 10-year journey now and it’s not until you actually sit there and think what I’ve got now, a nice house, four beautiful kids, it’s like; ‘oh wow, it’s paying off’.”

While still trying to improve himself daily Mirrielees is now also on a mission to help others.

For the past 10 years he has owned a gym in Dunedin, Let’s Go Fitness, where he is a personal trainer.

The 39-year-old has also developed his own better well-being programme which companies have enlisted him to deliver to their staff.

His goal is a bold but admirable one; “My biggest goal is to lower the suicide rate.”

Mirrielees talks to them about everything from their physical and mental well-being to the food they eat, and their work-life balance.

“If you don’t have a plan you are set up to fail.”

“What I look at is building everyone’s four walls so when adversity does come - and it will whether it’s your own fault or someone drags you into the shit — it’s how you cope with that,” he says.

“I share a little bit about my own journey as a professional rugby player, not having four strong walls and when adversity came, I turned to alcohol.”

For some who he presents the programme to, his own journey is relatable.

“I think people just love things that are real. You can sit down and study for 20 years and come out with the best science, but seeing someone that’s hit rock bottom and found a way to get through it, I suppose speaks to a lot of people.”

“My biggest thing is I keep working on myself and people see that. People can spot a bullshitter; you live it through your own life, and you live it through your own kids.”

Mirrielees is now in discussions with a couple of construction companies about catering his well-being programme to their staff.

“You’ve got the young guys that are on [energy] drinks every day so it’s about teaching them about their bodies, and there’s also the 50-plus guys that are about to tap out. They’ve got 15 years left and it’s about how you keep them motivated.”

On top of that Mirrielees has been provided funding to help 20 young rugby players.

“Just building them physically and mentally and what makes them feel good, and just building connections back up as well.”

Again, Mirrielees feels having his own story might help to cut through with those young rugby players.

“I remember listening to Zac Guildford’s story and he felt nothing was relatable. A guy like that talent, it could have helped him, who knows.”

“There’s a lot of mental health stuff going on, not just in rugby but everywhere, and my biggest thing is positive influence can create positive change.”

Hanging up the rugby boots at 39….

Mirrielees acknowledges he’d be lying if he says there wasn’t any sort of disappointment when he reflects on a Super Rugby career that wasn’t.

Although he’s still proud of what he accomplished on the rugby field and has every right to.

It’s probably in the club rugby scene in Dunedin where he leaves the biggest legacy.

He played 21 seasons, totalling 265 games. Mirrielees is just one of four players to pass that 250-game mark in Dunedin club rugby.

He estimates there are probably another 100 games he missed through injury or being pulled because of representative duties.

The 265 games were mainly split between Harbour and Green Island, although there was also a season with the Dunedin Rugby Club at the start of his playing days.

His mind was willing to push on and play at the age of 40 in 2023 but a broken thumb last season, which required surgery, suggested his body wasn’t willing to come along for the ride.

“I think the average age is about 19 and a half so to be battling away in my late 30s, I loved that challenge.”

“Rugby has been awesome. It’s opened so many doors and helped me build so many relationships.”

One of the highlights in amongst his 44 games for Otago was a return to his Southland roots in 2010.

He started at hooker in Otago’s Ranfurly Shield challenge at Rugby Park in Invercargill that day against a province he’d represented through the age-group ranks.

“That there, hands down, was probably my biggest sporting occasion. Getting to play at home [in Southland], and it was probably the best I played as well.

“Apart from obviously winning, it was everything a big moment could be. That was something I will never forget. Just the crowd, it was massive.”

Fittingly it was in his spiritual home on the East Coast where the curtain eventually came down on his representative playing days in 2021.

His mother Julie is from Tolaga Bay on the East Coast. She met Mirrielees’ dad, Peter Snr, a shearer from Dargiville, while working in the woolshed in the 1960s.

The couple eventually followed the sheep to Southland with three kids in tow, before having a fourth child, Peter Jnr, while living in Southland.

When Mirrielees’ cousin Hosea Gear took over coaching Ngati Porou East Coast he reached out to Mirrielees to see if he was interested in helping out.

It was emotional for not just Mirrielees but his entire family, given the East Coast is where his mother was born and bred.

“I had my brothers crying on the phone, they couldn’t even speak to me. They didn’t do that when I played for Otago.”

His first game in the sky blue Ngati Porou East Coast jersey was a preseason game against the Classic All Blacks - a team made up of retired older players.

Mirrielees admits the occasion got the better of him. He says he overcooked it a bit as he lined anyone of those older opponents, who were stepping out of retirement for the day for a bit of fun.

It took a fellow former Southland Boys’ High School hooker, Corey Flynn, to step in.

“It’s on our whenua, my mum and dad are there, it’s a pretty special occasion, I was hissing. I was going a hundy and everyone was wondering what this I guy was up to.

“I remember Flynny saying to me after 20 minutes; ‘alright Mirrielees, that’s enough’. It was probably the wrong time for me to make my [East Coast] debut.”

The initial plan was that Mirrielees would play just the one Heartland Championship game for East Coast against North Otago in Oamaru, a short drive from his home in Dunedin.

However, he ended up becoming a key figure in its 2021 campaign which included helping East Coast break a 54-game losing streak with a victory over Buller.

Probably the highlight for Mirrielees though was beating neighbours Poverty Bay on its home ground that season.

“It was mountain versus mountain, tribe versus tribe, it was unreal.”

Taking on the next challenge…..Challenge Wanaka

Mirrielees isn’t one to put his feet up and simply reflect proudly on his lengthy stint playing rugby. He’s quickly turned his focus to his next sporting assignment.

Thirteen days after he brings up his 40th birthday milestone Mirrielees will venture to the start line of the Challenge Wanaka event on February 18.

“Instead of having a big piss up, I thought I’d put myself through my paces and really look at the longevity of life and look at what the next 20 years looks like.”

In front of him in Wanaka will be a 1.9km swim, 90km bike, and 21km run.

For a front-rower, with a playing weight of about 115kg, that’s the definition of stepping outside the comfort zone.

“[Frontrowers] are built like rhinos aren’t we, short and sharp, in and out. You play for about three minutes on a rugby field and get a minute or two rest. So, she’s definitely different training.”

Mirrielees says he’s seen many of his rugby mates push past 130kg once they finish playing. They eat the same amount, but the training disappears, he says.

He didn’t want to follow suit. In fact, Mirrielees didn’t even want to stay at that 115kg he was at as a player post-rugby.

“I didn’t need to be a father of four, soon to be five, at 115kg once my rugby had finished.

“It’s not the lifestyle I want. I want to be a father who can still race the kids up mountains and be involved in their sport, not just watch on the sidelines. That’s my goal, my why, is to be part of my kids’ lives and I want to lead the way through physical activity.”

“If I pump this out and get myself at a reasonable weight, then I want to live at that weight. It’s about what the next 20 years looks like for myself. I haven’t been at under 100kg since the [Southland Boys’] under-15 tournament team.”

He jokes that prior to his decision to take on Challenge Wanaka the last time he had been on a bike was a as five-year-old at the BMX track in Invercargill. As for swimming, he says he previously did enough to ensure he could catch some crayfish and Pāua, but that was the extent of it.

Then there’s the 21km run chucked in, for good measure.

“The run, well, that will just show how much ticker I’ve got at the end.

“My mental capacity is probably the best asset I have. I have had it all through my rugby, I’ve never been the biggest player, or the strongest or fastest, but always got up and went again.

“They’ll be carrying me off on a stretcher If I have to pull out, that’s for sure.”

Life as a business owner & soon to be father of five….

There’s a bit going on in Mirrielees’ life as he goes about preparing to take on Challenge Wanaka on February 18.

He mixes that training in with his most important role in life, his duties as a father to his four children - Luna-Marama, 9, Enya-Mahuika, 7, Arlo-Manaaki, 5, and Emry-Mikaere, 3. Him and wife Julie Cheyne also have a fifth child on the way.

“Parenting is a tough, tough gig but the ones that struggle are the ones that haven’t had much adversity in their lives. ‘Wholey crap, these kids are screaming at me, what’s going on here’.

“Give me another three or four [kids], I love the carnage because I was brought up around carnage.”

He’s very much a hands on dad. He labels the weekend “test match footy” given the intensity that comes with juggling four young kids and their activities.

“Four kids, it’s game on….It does take a lot of energy but that’s my focus, to make sure I have the energy.”

His love of sport and what it offers to other parts of life has flowed through to his children. He coaches his daughter’s touch team, son’s rippa rugby team, and does surf lifesaving with his oldest girl Luna-Marama.

“I love the adversity that sport throws at the kids, because they don’t get that in the classroom or the playground. The values you learn in sport is amazing.”

On top of that he has a gym, Let’s Go Fitness, to run, which he has done for a decade now.

Mirrielees admits Covid-19 has taken its toll as business came to a screaming halt and has struggled to recover.

He’s unsure if it will survive long-term.

“I’ll be honest the last three years has been pretty tough, we don’t know what the next 10 weeks looks like.

“Again, it’s just like being on the footy pitch, you’ve had a few hidings and you just turn up and go again and give it your best.

“Who knows what opportunities come up and whether we keep the gym going. It’s all up to the next 10 weeks.

“We are just going day-by-day. For me, the reasons why we’ve survived is through relationships and if your doors are still open you’ve still got a chance.

“But I’m not going to sacrifice my house to keep it open.”

What is certain is Mirrielees has developed a remarkable mental outlook on life, something that has set him up well for whatever the future might bring.