“Today she’s been out to the flower markets at 5am. My job is to go up there and park the car so she can go in. It’s amazing the hive of activity there is up there at that ridiculous hour of the morning — it’s quite the scene!”

That the former Wallaby captain, 50, is a devoted husband and dad is obvious from the get-go. He chats warmly about his children — Wilson, 20, Finn, 18, Matilda, 17, Andie, 14 — throughout the interview, which is essentially to focus on the Balmoral Burn, the event he started 18 years ago to raise funds for the Humpy Dumpty Foundation.

‘Humpty’ as he calls it, provides vital paediatric, neonatal, maternity and emergency equipment to hospitals across Australia.

“Last year we raised $2.3 million,” Kearns said. “We have a dinner in a marquee on Balmoral beach on the Friday night (before the event) and we tell people the equipment that is on our Humpty’s Wish List, and people say, ‘OK I’ll buy that’.

“They might buy it for a certain hospital because it’s near where they grew up, or where their holiday place is. As of last week, we’re in 373 hospitals around the country.”

He cites the example of a portable incubator, recently bought for the Royal Darwin Hospital, which allows critically ill babies to travel for lifesaving treatment.

Kearns has a personal reason for his ongoing dedication to The Humpty Dumpty Foundation.

“It was the equipment from Humpty that helped save Andie’s life when I ran over her,” he said referring to the 2005 incident at his home when Andie was 19-months-old (Andie subsequently made a full recovery). “I’m a big believer in karma.”

In 2016, Kearns — speaking about the accident to the Daily Telegraph — said: “It took seven minutes for the ambulance to get to the house. (The doctors later) said if it was nine minutes she would be dead.”

But it was another hospital dash that prompted the Balmoral Burn, a 420m dash up Mosman’s punishingly steep Awaba St. When Finn was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital with suspected meningococcal as a baby, Kearns was determined to give back. “I thought we’d give it a lick of paint,” he said. As it turned out, he did far more.

A walk up Awaba St with the dogs sparked the specific idea for the race. “So I went and spoke to a friend of mine, decathlete Peter Hadfield, and asked him if he knew anyone who could put on a run and he said, ‘I’ll do it’. “So for the first three years Peter, who’s a Humpty supporter, helped put the run together,” he said.

“Peter suggested I speak to Paul Francis from Humpty. There was a guy called Shane Barr on the Humpty board who I knew because he was the CEO of Trent Nathan, the company that dressed the Wallabies. It was all connected.”

IN RELATED NEWS

The first Balmoral Burn saw 500 runners take to the hill. Now there are thousands joining the different races from corporate and school teams to individuals and even celebrities — Richard Wilkins, Ben Fordham and Adam Goodes have all felt the Burn.

The Kearns kids are seasoned runners. “They’ve grown up with it and they’re pretty much always there on the day. Matilda (who was the Mosman Daily’s Junior Sports Star winner in 2017) is at Queenwood, and the school had 54 teams enter last year. That’s 216 kids right there — and they’re usually in fancy dress.”

All four kids are sporty as you might expect for the offspring of a former Wallaby, who played for Australia 67 times and captained for 10.

“They love their sport. Matilda’s the standout, but they all enjoy being part of a team. They’ve rowed and played rugby, and for Matilda at Queenwood it’s been water polo and soccer among other things,” he said.

“She played water polo in the Junior World championships last year in Greece — she’s seen all these European countries I never saw with rugby.”

The boys play rugby — Wilson for Mosman’s 2nd Grade Colts and Finn for Randwick (“he takes it a more seriously”). Kearns coaches the Colts as well as Andie’s 7s team. An unfair advantage, surely? “No, because I know nothing about women and nothing about 7s!”

Kearns said coaching had allowed him to “reconnect” with the game after 18 years as a commentator for Fox Sports.

“Coaching 2nd Grade Colts is so much fun.

“The boys want to have fun and don’t take it too seriously — and because we’re having so much fun, we’re winning,” he said.

IN RELATED NEWS

Surprisingly, Kearns wasn’t the sportiest kid in school. “I never had any ambition to play for Australia, so when pieces of the puzzle started to fit together, it was surreal. To eventually captain was incredibly surreal.

“When I look back it was an advantage not being in the first grade team at school because it took the pressure off. When it was time to take it more seriously, I was prepared,” he said.

The insurance CEO, who moved to Mosman when Wilson was a baby, is consistently busy, with sport and otherwise.

He’s done the Sydney to Hobart race three times (for Humpty of course) and plays water polo — both in addition to his ‘day’ job. He also helps out at the Children’s Cancer Institute where he was on the board for 10 years.

“I like keeping busy,” he said. “Andie’s accident changed me a little bit in terms of, ‘well life’s short, so do as much as you can’.

“I probably try and squeeze in a bit too much. Julie tells me to slow down, to take a breath, sit down on the couch and have a beer.”

He may be busy, but won’t outpace his boys on the hill on Sunday May 27.

“I’m not a runner any more so I just shuffle up the hill. I had to stop sprinting because my knees let me down. My boys are so much faster than me — they have been for at least 10 years. Hopefully they’ll race against each other this year and see how they go.”

Register for the Balmoral Burn at Humpty.com.au or on the day.

IN RELATED NEWS