The Country 12/06/25: Samuel Whitelock talks to Jamie Mackay

An All Blacks legend talks about life after rugby. He also celebrates Farmstrong’s 10th anniversary and how he’s been an ambassador for the nationwide rural wellbeing programme for nine of those years.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well we've finally got our man, our farm strong ambassador
Samuel Whitelock. I had Richie mccaur on the show yesterday. Samuel,
he played one hundred and forty eight tests for the
All Blacks. People said that would never be beaten. Well, you
went about five better. I think you're finished on one
fifty three.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Right, Yeah. Yeah, I managed to get a couple more
in there than him.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
But yep, that was always part of your master plan.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
I remember talking to you about two or three years
before you were going to that final World Cup and
you said, no, no, that's on my sites, that's what
I wanted to do. And you're kind of indestructible as
a rugby player. You never seem to miss many games.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Yeah, I know that was something and Richie was awesome.
He helped me a lot in those last couple of years
around the challenges that come when you get a little
bit older and some of the guys that are potentially
could be your children that are playing alongside you, so
there's some cool things there. And our kids at the
same age so know each other pretty well, and got
to chew the fat over a cup of coffee and

(00:59):
all those things.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
We had Richie and Dame Valerie Adams on the show
yesterday and they were talking about their bodies.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
Post their sporting career. You still look very lean and
in shape. How is the body?

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, I'm roughly the same way as I was as
a player. It's probably just gone south a little bit.
But I'm just got to make sure I don't eat
too much and train a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Probably, you're a farmer. You're a bit of a rarity. Well,
you're a former All Black. But in recent times, I
mean in the nineteen sixties when Pine Tree, Meads and
and Kirkpatrick and all those guys, Brian Lahaw of course
the great bj Law, the entire Ford Pack was farmers.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
These days you're a real rarity. You're one.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Andrew Hare was one, Tony Woodcock was one. But they're
few and far between. What opportunities does that afford you
as a former All Black and most capped All Black
in terms of a corporate life after farming.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah. When I was playing rugby, I really enjoyed the
balance of getting away from rugby and talking farming and
doing a little bit on the side. But now it's
completely reversed. So it was like this an how I've
changed it over and it's really nice to have some
rugby still in my life. And I'm helping out a
couple of teams coaching, the key one being my son's

(02:13):
under nine team. I think I'm the assistant assistant assistant
coach so very much hold a tackle bag and just
help out where needed. And they love playing bullrush, so
it's quite cool to see them doing what we did
as good.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Farm Strong celebrates ten years in existence this year. It's
the tenth birthday. Nige is giving me the big thumbs up.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
There.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
You, I'm told have been with Farm Strong and some
shape or another since twenty sixteen.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
That's nine of those ten years.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, hopefully I get to have some of that ten
ten year birthday cake that's going to come out in
a couple of hours. But no, it's a very very
humbling thing to be a part of to see and
experience some of the things that you get to experience here.
I've had people come up to me tears and the
eyes and shake my hand and just say thank you,
and you know that they've either been or going through

(03:01):
something really challenging and coming out the other side of it,
and it's really nice to know that some of the
things that we do as a wellness program absolutely helping
our farmers and growers.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, and over the years of what I've been chatting to,
You've got to know you are we But you're more
animated when you talk about farmstrong than you are about rugby,
because I know what it's like. We're in an all black,
long term all black. You probably get sick of answering
questions about rugby.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
I've had a lot of comments around Super Rugby and
what happened. Obviously we're in Hamilton. A few chief supporters
are not too heavy about the Blues, so I've had
that question of it today and they've all asked who's
going to win on Friday. So I'm actually going to
go to the game, which is the first Crusadoys game
I've been too since I've played, so hopefully I'm not
pacing too much up and down the sideline.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Those bloody Crusaders are going to take a bit of
beating now that they've got the home advantage, very quickly
to finish on because I do need to go to
a break.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
How's the farm and Hawkes Bay.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, we're tracking along quite nicely. Had a bit of
an interesting and reduction through spring and summer, but had
a very nice autumn. So we've got a little bit
of grass in front of us. We're about to start
someone to crops, so I'll get home and we'll start
that next week.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Give us a look at those hands, sam or Samuel,
harder than they used to be anyhow, Thank you very
much for doing God's work as a farm.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Strong investment of Samuel Whitelock