When No One’s Watching: Global men’s charity encouraging swims and chats arrives at Cottesloe and Rockingham

In the days after Tadhg Kennelly was sensationally sacked from his AFL coaching job during COVID, the former Sydney Swans player found himself withdrawing and isolating at home.

His mate Dave Eccles, a fellow Irish expat, kept calling, texting and showing up at his door, until Kennelly finally agreed to go on an early morning walk and get a coffee.

Other friends soon started joining them, and in 2020, the two mates turned the morning routine into a global men’s charity, When No One’s Watching.

The organisation has since opened its first Perth chapter at Cottesloe Beach, with a second running at the Rockingham foreshore. The two groups are among 62 WNOW chapters now running across seven countries.

That means, at 6am every Wednesday morning, you’ll find at least a dozen or more Perth blokes of various ages and backgrounds gathered together for an early morning ritual aimed at tackling loneliness and supporting their own and each other’s mental wellbeing.

“You can’t miss us, we are the only men on the beach,” laughs Adam Brennan, another Irish expat who set up the Cottesloe chapter two years ago.

Mr Brennan was drawn to the group after experiencing his own mental health challenges. He has received treatment for anxiety and depression after a close friend and flatmate died by suicide in Ireland.

“I always wanted to do something after that, that I felt would make a difference and have a really positive impact,” he said.

“When I heard about the group in Sydney, I reached out to the guys and was like ‘Can I start something here? It’s such a brilliant idea.’ And the guys were like, ‘we would love you to’.”

Mornings at Cott begin with light exercise, followed by a fun game of touch rugby or baseball. A talking stick gets passed around the circle to give everyone a chance to get their thoughts of their chest, they take a quick ocean dip and then head for coffee at Il Lido, paid for by the charity.

Between exercising and talking, the group perform 61 push-ups. “Sixty push-ups represent the 60 men around the world who take their own lives - we do one push-up in unison until we get to 60,” Mr Brennan said.

“And then we do 61, because unfortunately, we lost one of our guys last year to his own battle with mental health. We do an extra one to remember him.”

The “circle of trust” allows the men to talk about anything that’s going on in their lives or that they want to get off their chest, Mr Brennan said. He’s found men will naturally open up when they are passed the talking stick, as the ritual has become normalised within the group.

“It’s just a really good opportunity for everyone to speak up about things they may have closed off,” he said.