#91 Shaun Ryan - Best Seat In The House

[Applause] shawn ryan welcome to the dylan friends podcast my friend it's very exciting to have you in the studio today 350 game eight time you're a timer that's big yeah great to be here thanks for having me got a lot of questions to ask and i'm a little bit upset about a few other things that i'm going to bring up later but we'll get to that um yeah yeah i've got a lot of disgruntled um memories some hard doings i think i was done by the umpires a little bit yeah but um i'm looking forward to getting into it how are you firstly what's news obviously you're retired at the moment you're retired you do retire and you've come back before is this definite retirement um it is yeah i've had a few messages where friends are calling bs on it but i'm telling them that's it i mean there's a lot of upside to it in terms of time and family time weekends back you know and for yourself you know all your weekends for a long part of the year take it up but um you do miss a group and as much as you commit to staying in touch the reality is you've gone from seeing them three times a week to not seeing them um so there's there's that sort of void that you work through but other than that um i'm really enjoying the time yeah i found that as well uh not that i had as long as career as you but you feel like when you leave a team like oh i'm gonna miss these guys so much but as soon as you move on you just go it's incredible how quickly you just adapt to things and you just get used to the new norm yeah you replace it pretty quickly yeah um yeah you do and um and and they do as well you know like and you do keep in touch and it's when you see them again it's like you know the last time you seen him it's fantastic but you know everyone's got a life and everyone moves on pretty quickly yeah they do they definitely do let's get into john what is your first memories of getting into umpiring um obviously as i said you're one of the most decorated umpires the afl um in the afl's had and we'll get into a lot today but how did you first get into it you were saying before off camera you weren't actually a footballer growing up it wasn't like that uh i was i was a footballer like i grew up in warnerville the country and it was football in the winter cricket in the in the summer and i was one of a large family of seven kids five boys we used to belt the crap out of each other in the backyard it was just a mud pit all that sort of stuff so it was it was awesome times but um i was i was saying that our family was a racing family so you know i grew up my dad was a sort of champion jockey as a kid and then got too heavy at about 20 my my brother was a jockey i've got an identical twin brother he's a horse trainer um and my uncle won the melbourne cup when i was about 10 years of age so you know we were frothing on horse racing a lot but footy was a big part of it in the winter just because that's all your mates were playing so i played a lot of footy um and then when i was about 16 time to get a job um you know i was fit i was sort of doing it okay and cross country running at school and stuff and a mate was on porn so i thought oh well instead of going to macca's for 100 bucks a week i'll go up there and that's sort of how it started just chasing the dollars but with umpiring i think this is a common knowledge but for me and my understanding as well like we i know how fit you have to be to to be an a4 player um you've competed in i think triathlons and and iron man's since you know whilst doing this and whatnot how fit are you guys like how much training goes into like running what sort of kilometers are you doing in games well that's sort of something yeah um look we are fit particularly by the general standard of a person on the street um we're certainly field umpires i wouldn't describe it as elite runners um like but boundary on piezo yeah that surprises me because they're just running up and down all day so they they are guys by and large who were just not quite good enough to make sort of national standard running you know there are guys that are peeling off 30 minutes for 10ks and stuff like that like just really really fit wow dudes and so field umpiring you do need to be real fit and when i say fit you need to be able to you know run to a pretty strong level and i'd equate it probably to an onboarder at an afl club i'd imagine um but i think what makes it difficult to say recruit elite level field umpires is fitness is one thing but then your ability to comprehend the rules is another thing so you need to have some level of intelligence to get you a handle on very complicated rules then you need to have some degree of sort of coordination to bounce the ball um because that can get ugly if you don't do that probably and then um the final piece of the puzzle is putting that all together under extreme pressure you know fatigue yeah so that composure element is really important as well so there are a lot of people over my journey who have been brilliant at a two or three of that four but if if one of them is not up to scratch um you generally get exposed at some stage yeah for sure no i can i can completely agree well it's like anything really isn't it like football as well you can be good at kicking but if your fitness isn't there to match and if your game sense isn't there as well it's it's sort of like a all-in-one that that needs to fit and i feel with umpire especially that not that mistakes are made often but even when they are realizing the fatigue and taking in the moment the pressure under this like how do how do you deal with that when when you're umpiring in terms of big games big moments making these calls yeah what's what sort of pressure are you under or can you simplify thing and be in the game in the present yeah i can only talk from my subjective experience and so um i think you're sort of denying the reality to say oh it doesn't affect me it's you know the crowd etc i mean at the end of the day if the scores are level with a minute to go and there's a free kick in the goal square you need some balls to just say hey i'm going to pay this and i mean the way i used to um think think of it is this is you just need to pull what you think is the right rein in that moment because if you do pay it or don't pay it there's consequences either way you need to pay what's right and so that's i always just said i don't care any anywhere anytime is what i used to say you need to be in anywhere anytime umpire because if you decide oh it's late in the game i'm just sort of not going to blow my whistle well you'll get smashed for missing a free kick you know so you just need to pay what you think's there at all times and that was the way that you where you could look after yourself best because it's not a situation where if you decide it's safe you're here not to blow the whistle that you'll get because you know this year already we've seen examples where free kicks haven't been paid very late in the game and there's just as much kickback so um yeah in terms of your sort of broader question like how do you deal with the crowd and all those types of things you do have to like develop this very present mindset or it becomes difficult and my experience was i was sort of able to develop that to a degree but the reality is if you know you've stuffed up a free kick and it's a big ticket item um that's following you around for a bit of time oh yeah and you need techniques to sort of try and get yourself back but um although i i felt like that was part of my game that was pretty good at um it's still you know there was still some instances where you know you were sick in the guts what is does anything jump out to mind to you now about calls that you've made like you've said then that really stuck with you and to this day you still think oh that was a call that i got wrong or even just a big call that you had to make in a moment that is is divisive oh yeah um a few yeah i mean the one i love to give an example of is because um it was friday night jul i think it was 2011. friday night geelong had been undefeated for the year collingwood had been undefeated for the year i think it was about round eight um a hundred thousand people mcg now if you're gonna [ __ ] one up that's not the stage well that was my stage so um and what happened the context to it always if you recall um 2011 the start of 2000 they changed the advantage rule and it used to be that the umpire always calls it so we'd sum it up and go there's no advantage there stop you know and they said look no just let the player if they're silly enough to take it let's see it cool yeah now i've had 20 years of umpiring one way this and this has just changed and it's about 45 meters out of boundary throw-in i pay sorry the context is there's a minute to go and i'm already nervous could collingwood are down by three points i think and geelong are up and 45 meters out in the boundary throw in i pay a free kick to the coinwood ruckman with about a minute to go and it's a big call but it's pretty clear got him over the neck and then the ball bobbles away and everyone sort of stops and i blow time on and i'm just going to the mark and then i hear this massive roar of the crowd and i look around and here's the ball just sailing through the goals and i'm like what's happened there i'm like i cut it it kind of been like there was it must have stopped there's no way that you know it can't have been an advantage anyway as i had a tendency to do i had a little sneaky look at the big screen as i'm lining it up well chris ah um scotty pendlebury has just pounced on this ball snapped it and drilled a goal clear advantage i haven't seen it i've not allowed the goal because i'm here at the mark right so that it wins in the game yep i've disallowed the goal and i've got one out and i need this collingwood ruckman i can't remember his name now cameron wood yes so i've got to be i'm impartial i'm pi i i love cameron wood but i'm not liking his chances of this well listen to this 45 meters out i'm thinking this is a big kick i sort of bring the mark back to 43 like yeah and i'm looking at this and you know i'm i'm impartial but i'm barracking hard and i get this through man so he nails his kick it's going straight through the goals and right on the line someone punches it through and at that moment he didn't make the distance no woody he's kicked it from say 50 okay last quarter i'll give him it anyway um the moment that got punched through i thought okay this is going to be a tough week so then it was just the circus you know um and you know that's what it is that's part of the game you know and the way i explain it is as she said it's a human game played by humans officiated by humans all people will make mistakes at some stage you know and the reality is though that um in the afl stage in victoria particularly in geelong particularly torquay where i live the surf coast so you know it's not a week where you walk around and no one's not mentioning it and they're pulling you up at every cafe and you know all that sort of stuff and and so you know that's one instance of um you know i suppose a few over the career where you just go this is going to be tough what what follows that because like not just from i suppose a critic's point of view but in terms of what follows that through an umpire's point of view like review yeah what follows it through for yourself mentally and then what follows it through like scrutiny in terms of like the public yep um it's a really good question so firstly if i can deal with me the way um by that stage i've made a few stuff-ups in over the career and um we might go into this later but in terms of my upbringing and from a young age the sort of path that i took in terms of what i was encouraged to take sort of an inward path self-reflection i was always sort of observing you know what's my attitude to this how do i and prior to that i came to the conclusion that the best way to deal with these things was cisco yep so people would say you stuff that up and i go yeah that was it yeah and then as soon as i owned it and said it's just a cock-up you know now it doesn't necessarily um it doesn't change anything and you still feel bad about it but there's sort of this sense of relief that well it's just my error no one else's fault i stuffed it up you know and that's it and so i learned that um sort of owning it helped me a bit it helped sort of relieve it it was when if you were defending something that was probably indefensible there was this an internal struggle and then you're starting to argue with people and all that sort of stuff so um then in terms of the feedback look generally um you know the coaches will just go through it and say you know this is wrong this is what you could have done better that type of stuff and there is well particularly at that time there was a waiting of mistakes if you know what i mean like if there was a something that you clearly should have got right you clearly got wrong or um then you know it would it would be taken into account more harshly that was a bit different in the sense that the mistake was nearly understandable the ball was hard to see everyone else stopped around him and all those types of things it wasn't like a guy got his head ripped off in the goal square and i'm sitting there calling you know playing when i should have got it but so i wasn't sort of necessarily i wasn't like heavily criticized internally um but then yeah the external media you would know like sometimes there's a viciousness to it all you know like they can go pretty hard and that's their role to create stories and emotions within their viewers and readers and that's how they sell papers and all that sort of stuff so um i i just really didn't listen to any of that but unfortunately as you guys would probably know you get told pretty regularly from from people out and about on messages from people and stuff like that but um yeah so that's sort of how i tended to deal with it with the review of game obviously that situation as you said was quite black and white like yes the free kick was there but you know you should have paid it you knew it in terms of reviewing of games how stringent is that of afl like week to week like after games for the general public that want i know and i don't even know this either how like much are you going through and reviewing all of the free kicks and all the things paid yep so um firstly in terms of the the coaching part of it and then perhaps i'll talk about my approach but the coaching part of it is is really extensive i mean we we have a coach at every game um and the system's changed a little bit now but for the pretty much all of my career you'd have a coach at every game and then that coach would give you a running sheet and it might have in the course of a game something like 60 things on it and they are things relating to free kicks that were correct free kicks that were missed free kicks that you paid that were unwarranted it'll have stuff like positioning like you just were in a poor position that's why you miss that or if you keep doing that position you're going to miss it importantly in the last sort of decades your communication because we're marked up you know what you said you know how how um how you could have explained it better or that was good or appropriate maybe learn off this guy he deals with that situation really well you know that sort of stuff and then there's a lot of teamwork things you know could have helped you mate a bit more here you know all those types of things so that'll be an email that you might get on the monday after a saturday or sunday game and it'll be sort of a running sheet of everything and you'll get a general feel of how your game's been is it like a rating or is it more just like a pass i think now which is good everyone's different you know like i don't didn't care at all about my rating because i didn't see how that helped me you do your little ratings in the background and i'll just try and keep paying correct free kicks but if you want your rating and all that sort of stuff you can um and the depth of analysis that can depend depending on empires as well so then that would um go into the next day which would be training and coaching so you do your training your physical stuff we'd have a group meeting might be an hour or so and we'd go through some general themes and some learnings out of the weekend some good things all that sort of stuff and then that that's generally what blows a lot of people's minds when they turn up to just view that session is you've got a lot of pretty intelligent people just tearing shreds out of things and really just digging down to what the hell do you want us to do in that situation and you know umpires generally like a lot of sports people are driven by some aspect of fear that is don't send me out on that ground not knowing what to do i need to know whenever this occurs again what do you want me to do okay and so that would be the analysis of a review in the game and then by tuesday you want to have locked that away and you're starting to work towards the weekends game now on top of that most umpires would actually then watch the game themselves scrutinize themselves and do all that sort of stuff and i probably did that four games five games and never did it again and that's just a personal choice and i'm not suggesting my approach was the correct one but it didn't work for me you know i would you know watch the game oh god why'd i pay that you know this sort of stuff and it wasn't serving me and um so i just thought well i'm not just going to do this for a while and see how i go and and that just worked for me so um yeah i hardly ever watched a game back i've never watched the grand final back that i've done i think so in fact in fact you know this spun people the first afl game that i umpired was i think the third afl game i'd ever been to because i you know i came from the bush racing family didn't really go to melbourne for afl footy at all um you know when i did the under 18 grand final you know i just walked outside and gave my two tickets to for the senior game to people and you know i wasn't really sort of frothing on afl footy you know and that made it easier for me in terms of didn't really have allegiances to club and really you know all of that and my identity wasn't really caught up in afl footy a lot um yeah so anyway i hope that no it definitely does it's funny you say that with the the interest in afl football because i actually found that quite similar in myself like since i've finished playing i've never been to a lot i've been to a live game i don't really watch games on the weekend um i don't really miss playing football at all but it was sort of a passage like i enjoy it but it's not like it wasn't everything for me yeah it's it's funny how you can still you know officiate at such a high level but not have a love for it i think it actually does help yeah i mean and i think everyone's different like it it can it can it's good good to have an outlet because once you get you know like it's very easy in sport i think for your identity to get caught up in your accomplishments or your achievements which means that your self-worth is up and down depending on how you're going you know in footy if you're playing a good game the world's fantastic if you're getting dropped and it's a disaster you know and umpiring's the same as that and you know you start to get caught up in that i think everyone does gets caught up in that circle of my self-worth linked to how well i'm doing in my sport at any given time for sure rule changes big topic in in footy um in officiating the games it's it's it's one of my things that i get really annoyed about in in sport like i'm a big believer in like just leaving the game as it is but i understand that things need to change sometimes i don't have like a a solution for the game but i just think like the game's good just just leave it alone that's my opinion how hard is it for umpires to keep up with these rule changes because a lot of people would know this but stating the obvious unbuyers are officiators of the game they don't change the rules so each year and when rules are changed that comes to you guys and then you're learning to keep up with these new things how hard is it to keep on on trend and and even with some of these rules do you like do you like them do you agree with them um so yeah first part of your question how hard is it it's i mean every rule change makes it hard because um because it's another thing that you have to be on the lookout for and not only that there's then generally flow on effects from it um you know and so it makes it really difficult in terms of are they necessary then you know i think some of them are and you know when you look at it it's a lot of it is sort of player behavior driven you know i came to an era where it was just trying to make it black and white in the early 2000s like guy gets hit in the head it's a free kick now after five six seven years of that players thought gee if i just get my head near his legs or arms i'm gonna get free kick here and players my perception is that players will do whatever it needs to be done to get a kick or win a game of footy for their club so they're willing to drive their head into a place knee or arm just to get a free kick in front of goal you know and now then what happened is now high isn't high did the player duck did he shrug did he drive did he you know now all this happens in .01 of a second so you see a guy get his head ripped off but then on replay he sort of put his shoulder up where he shrugged he's this and that just happens like that and back in the day high is high we didn't have to think about any of that was this a free kick now we've got to think about all that now you know now um when when i started say 2003 to 2000 and say 10 um a guy would nearly get reported for an incident that now he's getting a free kick for contact below the knees so he would come flying into a pack and hit a guy's head and the guy's on the ground and you'd report the guy now you're like well hang on you went to ground and took his legs and so the flip of that when you've been doing it one way for 15 20 years and so but there is a purpose to it all you know it's player safety um and then the great greater purpose you know in terms of this year is trying to you know free the game up and and and flow it up so you think they're working the rule changes this year yeah well i must say i was a little skeptical about whether a player being able to move a couple of meters laterally on a mark is going to have that much of a difference and i think the early signs are that i actually i actually do agree with i actually think that works really well it's like obviously scores are up this year which is great for everyone to watch and we love seeing goals keep because you know goals are good yeah but realistically that man on the mark that can't move opens up these 45s so much more that you can't defend it you cannot defend these ball movement which makes it so much easier and i suppose even to keep up and officiate i'd like your view on this because it'd probably be more informed than mine but my sense is that not only is it easier but the player's mindset is changed now the player's mindset is i can get away with more now a lot of what they're doing now they may have been able to get away with other years but they're encouraged to do it and they've got the mindset that i can do it and take the risk and take them on so it seems that that seemed like a minor change has changed a mindset that players are now prepared to take greater risks in that scenario yes i could have been anything i reckon i was playing in this age yeah the amount of 45s i would have ripped if there was no see the man on the market always rattle me because you have to pop it up a little bit more then you do the loof the loopy kick then it's just turn over city back so tragedy it is a tragedy that's one world the world's biggest that that rule was not there when i was playing um with the rule change as you were saying before what are some rule changes that you have been hardest to get your head around like saying you know off there there was some things that were saying like you know as much as you're officiating this game and and delivering the rules that are needed to be hard you've had to make calls we go [ __ ] you know oh yeah i mean you know i think the point that you referred to earlier is we we don't make the rules we just have to implement them and sometimes there's instances on the ground and you're like i can't believe i'm gonna have to pay free kick gear and it makes you sick you know and you know i gave the example for me it was hands in the back was one of those rules because i i just try and keep everything very simple in every aspect of my life and in football it was just like free kicks fit into two categories protection a player and enabling everyone a fair opportunity to contest the ball so in a marking contest i just look at it and say has he done something that unfairly put the other guy out of the contest yes he has bang or there was a minor hold or a minor push but it didn't wasn't enough to affect the marking contest play on and then when we got to hands in the back um it would be not uncommon that when you paid the free kick the guy who got the free kick didn't know it was his free kick i mean that was quite a common scenario because he wouldn't feel this little light touch on his back and of course when it's only a hand in the back it doesn't affect the contest at all as well and so you'd see a guy who's just in fact the guy would be standing there in pole position for a mark and the person in front would back back into his space and you'd have to pay the person he's backed into his space the free kick because he backed back into a guy's hands who just happened to be waiting there for the ball and you know when you're paying that in a goal square for a goal in a tight game you're like oh i remember i'm not sure if this is still the case on the hands in the back rule but i do remember being a player and in the pre-season i buys would come down and we'd sort of practice you know practice the new rules together and there was a day where i reckon for like three hours we were practicing people coming back to us and having a straight arm rather than a bent arm yeah because a straight arm is not hands in the back because you're not but that's and and this this is a rule um and i actually love the ambiguities of the rules for a reason we might get onto but this is a great example of a rule where it was introduced to make it black and white it's all black and white um you know hand in the back free kick now the day this got introduced i still remember the meeting and we're all in the meeting and further to the point where i said you get a group of uh felon pies together and you put in a new rule be prepared because you know oh yeah so there you go now this is great rule it's all black and white and someone put on their hands um what's a hand and the guy delivering the message it's like what are you talking about what's a hand he goes that's a hand oh okay so four fingers is cool we can just so if they put their hand out with four fingers three where do we stop two you know this is you know and where's where's the back who's asking these questions we are you know where where's the back yeah so is it the hip is it the side is it the where's this all stuff and that's exactly what occurred you know like guys were sort of like this okay is that a hand and it was sort of side-ish backish and oh and you're sitting there going well this isn't clear-cut this is actually a hell of a lot far more difficult to implement then then the fallback position which was simply did he push him enough to affect his ability to mark the ball yes he did free kick no he didn't play on you know wow so these that's just the microphone yeah yeah definitely every rule that comes into play and the way it gets scrutinized and all that sort of stuff yeah it's the intricacies are incredible and i think that's what you know when when at every start of every cheer umpires will come out and deliver a talk and the players can question on these and coaches and i feel so sorry i'm forgetting the name of the boss of afl empires what was hayden kennedy hayden kennedy comes out and he's got the hardest job ever just explaining what the rules are why they're doing them and it's it's a tough role because they get he gets absolutely grilled by every club that you'd go present to and of course the the mindset of the afl player or club generally is okay so how do we get around this it's not how we're getting a new rule yet how do we play it's not how we play to it it's how what loopholes are there you know essentially and so you know holding the ball is a classic that it was just you know player had three steps balanced steady that would be holy well now you know if he you know fends off if he tries to evade if he puts the ball in the air if these are all prior opportunities now they happen really quickly and it looks really harsh and then you know the flip side is that if he didn't have a prior opportunity he doesn't need to dispose of the ball but of course what we get asked a hundred times on the ground and the crowd screaming how do you get rid of it he doesn't need to get rid of it he didn't have a pro opportunity and so you know the understanding of all of that is oh it's really difficult for people to get their head around and i get that and um but the problem is that um you would probably know i don't know how many people that you would know in mainstream football who would understand the intricacies of holding the ball yeah yet they're informing the public on what the decision is whether it's correct or not yeah so that sometimes is where the disconnect is for sure let's talk about the the money time of football it's it's playing in the big big games you've officiated eight grand finals is that the most of any umpire um have you got the record so this is part of the i don't think so there's a i think back um so well firstly maddie stevie um did eight last year bretty rosebury's done eight as well and then um back i think early 1900s it was i think somebody did 9 or 10. okay yeah modern day though it's up there what what are these games like to officiate i can imagine as big as they are for players like i'm a really as i said before afl is something that i love but the grand finals are something that i just really love watching i love everything about them um never got to really play in many grand finals as a kid or anything so i'm sort of obsessed with with how big they are for players but what's it like being an umpire on grand final day um i mean it's an incredible experience um but there's a lot of pressure with it obviously as well um so the whole week is a big week you know and anyone that's been in afl grand final will tell you like you get to the game and you're just pretty exhausted by the end of that and so you need to have techniques to deal with that and i think the more you do the more you learn that um but the game itself particularly when it's tight is you know a high pressure environment um and it's about you know what we chatted about earlier having techniques to stay present and just deal with every contest as it unfolds um but yeah it's uh it's a crazy week like there's so much going on and the game is just incredible and i mean it's funny because when you're in that game um you're sort of it's just a game it's not another game of footy but it's a contest that i have to officiate a contest i have to officiate it's not like you're really thinking about what yeah the circumstance but then if you're not and i'm just watching it i'm sitting there going oh my god this is this is full-on you know yeah and then you realize [ __ ] i've done a few of them myself but you're like you know it's it's i get more nervous for my mates who are doing the yeah and you're watching them and you're like oh man get this right get this 100 so you've done 2008 2009 the grand final rematch in 10 11 you retired and then came back did 17 18 19. those games in those grand finals what are your favorites i suppose going back now which games do you look back and go geez that was a big game um and in those games are there any memories that sort of the game just slowed down and you remember something happening or watching something going [ __ ] i'm actually here that just happened oh and lucky if some of those games have been some classics i think um 09 was the toughest game i think i've ever umpired i think at the time it was like the most tackles ever so that same killed urge long yeah yeah and that was with the tow poke yep yep and so i had that that incident and you knew at the time oh this is pretty cool like it was just a pretty cool thing um and then like that and i think people forget because at the end it was ten points or something but when the sauron went i think it was four points and then um someone kicked a goal you know as everyone was walking off yeah walking away max rook yeah it was yeah yeah um and that was tough and you know that had the point um you know touch the post you know you throw that into the equation where does it sit all that sort of stuff like that was a really really just a tough game and then the draw was just like yeah that was an experience so i don't think i'll know i'll never forget that because um you know i had i just happened to be in the middle of the ground and had that last sort of minute and you knew this has got to go any time now i was well aware that it was a draw um and when that siren went the the stillness of every everyone just in shock and you're just sitting there and you're thinking and it was a one of the first it was the only time that you sort of had this i explained it as this sense of like i don't know if it's over the top of like a oneness with the players like we all just could not believe that and i'm looking i was standing there just players all around me just exhausted um and then like nick del santo had the ball and i went over and get the ball and then i helped him up and then there was a photo of me helping him up and then that was like everywhere the next day and that was a pretty cool photo um but then like afterwards like what does this mean did you know like what what was going to happen yeah like and we knew and there was just this sort of like i can't believe we have to go through all this again because grand final week for me anyway is i think everyone experiences it differently but you get told you're doing the grand final i'm not really doing cartwheels i'm just like okay let's get this right yeah it's a big game you can't stuff this up let's get this right so it's just about preparation getting it right and that sort of stuff and then you're always telling yourself for me my body was always gone by the end of the year i'm just getting through my back stiff all those types of things i might just four more quarters that's all it is four more quarters you get the three quarter timer one more quarter one more quarter and then the goes you know that all meant nothing yeah yeah so um and i think everyone had that same experience like jesus well you know we're gonna do this all again um so yeah that was pretty cool and then the other one was obviously um the west coast coin wood dom sheet yeah wow yeah that was that was pretty cool um so that was a really really good game this uh this one hurts a lot of um collingwood people and just because of on the fact now that game obviously has a bit of uh what would you say there's a bit of a conjecture about what happened there with um willy riolly yep hanson what's the officiation on that in your point of view was that called i'm happy it was called like that don't get me wrong but is that yeah correct it was correct and it look the thing is in afl footy and this isn't a cop out there is so many 50 50 calls in afl footy right you could marginally go this way or marginally go that way and so um the you know like look i wasn't aware of that at the time i was in the other zone and so i wasn't aware that any possibility of a free kick and didn't even know anything about it until sort of the next day but um yeah you look at it back and the collingwood players sort of searching for willy riolly first because he thinks that's it looks like that he thinks that's where the drop of the ball is going to be and then realizes no it's not it's going to be another two meters ahead of it and then willy well i was like no i'm here you're not you're not getting past me this is this is where it is you know and so i can understand that being definitely been a play on call and even with those calls too you know if that happens in the first quarter probably never even gets brought up again it's just time time and and perspective of what's probably happened um anything i i could talk about grand finals stories all day is any other anything else stick out that even just like run-ins with players i suppose like do they say anything in these big games where you're just thinking like this players in a grand final but they've just done this yeah yeah well uh like little silly quirky ones like like guys like say jimmy bartel and dusty martin like it it's just like they're having a kick with their mates at the park you know five minutes to go a school's level in a grand final you know what i mean like they just it's just like just having fun out here just getting a kick and and like i remember you know nine and it was deep in the last quarter and it started raining and you know i've got the ball and you know you just okay let's switch on here and jimmy bartel's next thing he's like dude it's heavy that's right am i i reckon is short it's gonna pull down like hey jimmy two minutes to go mate for four point game yeah [Laughter] and it was seriously just like oh this is another game footy and and that sort of stuff does relax you a little bit as well um and and and dusty's very similar like he's just just but the perception is he's just loving kicking a footy you know and that you know that joy in professional sport is cool to see because it's just it we get so overridden with structures and this and that and things we've got to do and just that instinctive um joy of footy is is pretty cool you've mentioned those two there and i suppose being able to see them just in their element purely straight in the zone as you said like that's incredible who are some of your favorite players over your career that you've been able to watch and obviously you sort of build a rapport with these people because you know you're officiating most of their games um through the years is there any other players that stick out to you that you just love to to officiate there's players in terms of personality but in terms of like just love and see them in full flight but he's probably my number like if he's up and about he's just unbelievable to see um sil rioli he was another one um and then like yeah back in the day there was i mean like guys like say warren tredray i just did and i probably did treasure hurd and jonathan brown were sort of three guys that i don't know how many games i did where they just tore the bag out of it you know you're talking like 17 marks seven goal you know this sort of stuff and um particularly jonathan brown and heard were two guys who a couple of times had come off like massive injuries like 16 weeks with broken cheekbones or something and then first week back we're like 16 marks five goals best on ground and you're like wow this guy doesn't even need a few weeks to get back into it you know they're just straight into it um so yeah like in terms of like just loving watching them play i think um buddy cyril and probably dusty i just love the way he just goes about and the thing with um dusty and and to be honest most of the great players you know like able and judd and these guys dance one another you just don't hear boo from them like pay a free kick and they just put their hands up and that's it and they just don't bother arguing with you and the other thing is i call it you know you can you can trust them and what i mean by that from an unplanned point of view is sometimes when a guy throws his head back and you've unplugged him a few times you know look unless i see this guy get hit in the head i'm not prepared to pay a free kick here but if dusty martin goes to ground on his nose you know he's got one in here because and dane swan was a classic marking contest he's just doing whatever he can to hold his ground and if he gets put on his bum he's copped a real shove where other guys you go oh i'm not sure whether there was much in that even though he's sprawled on the ground so you start to learn over the years i can trust this guy and you know these are the little things that experience gives you for sure in on the contrary to that who are some players that made it very hard to officiate like was there any players that obviously when you cross a feud you're a different person not in uh not attacking their character at all but yeah in terms of arguing with the umpires or or not being able to trust like for some players arguing with umpires actually would get them into the zone yeah i feel like is there any people that stick out to mind ah look guys who were often hard so in terms of say glenn archer was one who was just my sense was he just his white line fever like he got on the ground and he just needed to beat his opponent and and i sensed there was like this sort of level of like anxiety as well like about like you get got really amped up and then when you blew your whistle that would naturally just flow over into well you're the guy that you've given a free kick to my opponent and he was always defender so i mean he's going to get a goal basically um and so you know he was one that you know loved to question um decision there was you know then there's some guys who are quite smart you know and those intelligent players give you the shits because they often know the rules and when you've made a mistake they know you've made a mistake you know you've made a mistake and you know like if you're like a joel bowden or a um uh jared ruff head you know these guys are pretty cluey and they knew the rules and they would just settle up to you and say well how's that a prior opportunity if that that is that the other or you know oh i'll never forget that day joel bowden he probably changed that rule of rush behind when he kept playing on from fullback and just walking back over the line yeah do you remember that yeah and i remember having an incident with joel it's a minor incident but as an example where a player kicked across the ground to him and i've adjudged after it left his boot and i looked where joel was this won't be 15. so i start calling play on not 15 a second after it's left his boot he's having a crack at me midair right before he's taken the mark about how would i know that it's 15 meters if the mark hasn't completed yet yeah right and so then we had this great banter about well i'll tell you what i'll do next time i won't give you any notice i'll wait till you mark it then i'll call and uh play on and someone will tackle you yeah that's well i'll give you no notice joel no and there was this just this to and fro and you know it was just like this guy knows the rules you know he's all over it so huge uh 2011 after the big grand final that's when you retire yep what where did that decision come from was it something that you just thought look i'm i'm tired i'm i'm finished um what was the reasoning behind the retirement a lot of things but the short of it is i just wasn't enjoying it at all um and you know when you in a grand final and you just really not enjoying it just like get the grand final okay um and just the love of the whole game and everything had just been sucked out of it for me and there was a combination of things i think in retrospect um you know i was busy at work had a really young family i was traveling up from torquay but the other thing was um i probably had come off a back of five or six years where although i loved it at the time i was probably doing nearly every big game whether it's friday night or saturday night or anzac day finals grand finals and the scrutiny on those games is is pretty severe and you know the reality is if you do a hundred of those games it's going to be a handful at least where you're just getting pulled apart and i think in retrospect like just getting up every single week it just started to wear me down and the reality was you know i sort of said a long time ago i just sort of will only do things that i enjoy and and at after 2011 i just thought after the grand finals i'm not doing doing this at all in fact the opposite i'm not enjoying it i'm hating it and so yeah i thought why am i doing it and you know i'd done five grand finals at that stage and sort of achieved way more than i thought i could um so i just thought well tom's right let's give it away so that was it you alluded to something earlier saying um from from your upbringing you were able to develop like skills to bring you back into the present and and find your love for for footy again and umpiring was that something you had to like revisit in that stage is that probably where that kicked in or yeah my mum when i was about 11 got diagnosed with leukemia and so one of her good friends was sort of you know new age for that time really new age and came and delivered all these meditation tapes and i sort of seen the transformation that it had with her and i was pretty profound so then i would go and nick these tapes you know and i'd use them sort of on and off but then when i got into year 12 and i started to just use them in pressure situations and so year 12 started to ramp up the pressure exams and i'd start to go in and do all these types of things so what sort of meditation is this just like you're listening to someone yeah this was just guided initially guided meditations yeah so yeah so i started doing that and that's that was a real gift for me i was really lucky and really fortunate that that sort of come in my path and i used that um a fair bit from then on um on and off but you know pretty much daily and then as i got to the stage where i was like embarrassed afl umpire all those types of things it really assisted me to to juggle all of it but i don't think the technique was in any way perfect i was still finding new things and stumbling around but it was just a process of constant self-evaluation and that sort of stuff so that that was um something that really assisted me but then by 2011 i just wasn't enjoying it and to get to your point yeah i had um three years off where i was really really enjoying retirement you know just loving it and then you know out of the blue get a call from hayden kennedy and and you know to this is probably getting maybe too woo-woo if i don't know for your listeners i'm not sure who eurons is but i've always been really big in like signs from the universe and that's since wow i'm talking to the right man yeah so you know and and to me of the way i'm wired it's not it's not a very um illogical thing that there's a you know a divine presence that's orchestrating much of what's going on you know of which you know it's intertwined with it with us all you know that to me seems sensible um and so you know i've often looked out for those signs and you know instead of using the human mind to nut my way through like just give me a sign and i would have to say to the universe you know i need a sign and i need it you know in a way that's easy to understand and clear because i'm really confused now you know so the short of all that woo story is that oh we love the woo please don't skip the wee work yeah so is yeah hayden rang and to be honest it made me sick about going back and i'm sort of delving into a story that i probably haven't really expressed to too many but um i did i did not want to go back you know um but i was also like why the hell is this coming to me right now you know i'd been retired for three years i was like 38 at the time i'm like this is really strange and i met with hayden and wayne and oh yeah they're really good it wasn't like we're desperate to get you back it's just like look we think you're retired too early you've got some good years ahead of you and we don't want you to regret you know this um you know we think you can add a bit those types of things and my immediate reaction to be honest was i i feel like i had a good career and i left some sort of legacy that was okay i reckon there's a real chance i make an answer myself if i come back you know and that was the fear of it and this was around the exact same time that um thorpe and phelps and that were coming back and just making horrible ghosts and and i'm like uh i i don't really want to do this um anyway but yeah to your point i just sort of like kept saying like i don't understand why this is happening and then i remember i dropped my daughter off um and this is the part i dropped my daughter off at ballet and i was like i've got to get back to him and i'm really confused i don't know what to do i'll go for this run but you know i need a sign and i don't know what to do so i got back to the car after the run and as i'm opening the gate to go and pick her up this lady comes from the opposite direction and says look i know you don't know who i am but i reckon you need to go back umpiring because they really need you blah blah and i'm like what okay i'm going back and so that was you know the lady no i didn't know and the timing was quite incredible and i'm like okay there's the sign off and that's you know it sounds stupid that every part of my beam was like don't do this but then i thought there's got to be a greater purpose to all of this you know why would these people be ringing out of the blue and all that type of stuff so the short of it is i said i i'd come back and for the first three months it just made me sick like um you know trying to get in and then i got back to the group so that was in i think that was in like about near the end of the year 2014 and i got back 2015 and i'm in three years you wouldn't believe how much this game has changed there was 15 rule changes the positioning was now completely different i'd umpired under ron saws and jeff geisha now hayden kennedy was his take on it was completely different what we said to the players where we bounced to the back to the to the short side now it's alongside where we stood in positions it was just it was like a different game and i remember saying to my wife in november i'm going to give this to mid-december and if i don't come good this is i'm done here anyway we sort of got through a period and i did my first whatever it would nab couple whatever it was called back then and it was the worst i've bounced statistically and the worst i've umpired decisionally in my life first came back it was a horror show and i thought oh this is just so bad and my fears are coming like you are making an arsenal yeah you know and um it was just horrible and then um got in did a few of those preseason games started coming a bit better and then i remember i did carlton collingwood about round five it was mick mulderhouse's game where he broke the record oh yeah i played in that game okay did i get oh god that was a that was a bad day full for carlton yeah i can't remember the game at all but i just remember that was the first game i thought okay i'm sort of getting back here i'm happy you had a good day i definitely didn't uh that was that was i think probably the most disappoint like putting into context mix mick mulders were playing carlton vs collingwood nick was obviously coaching carlton he was breaking the game's record of coaching and it was built up as like one of the biggest games on of the year yeah and the pressure for us to perform on that night you know to show respect for mick as a coach and these things and we got beat by probably nearly 100 points yeah and i just remember going in the next day and that was nearly the start of the end you know the beginning of the end for for mika carlton because it was just huge it was you know he was meant to be this like celebration of mick mulderhouse and his team just lost 100 points and [ __ ] some of the words that we got said yeah yeah i mean you can see the you can see the mindset of the umpire i don't remember that game i'm just like i had a solid day yeah yeah yeah it's all amazing but yeah that's um but i remember it was a big game for you know for the carton team and for mick and all that sort of stuff um but yeah so to continue the story i suppose that um so i got through that year and i would was probably serviceable and it was it was actually the first time in my whole career from juniors that i never made the finals panel um and and i'm like do i keep going here i mean it was serviceable but i'm not i'm not just going to deliver serviceable and then i decided to do this 10-day silence meditation retreat in tassie called vipassana and and that was start of this 2016 season like january and that was what i needed yeah it just go and that's a long way of getting back to your comment a few minutes ago about is this a time when you revisited that sort of meditation stuff and so that sort of really assisted in resetting me what is this what what did you do on the camp well to be honest it sounds extreme but for 10 days you 12 days you get there on the first day they talk to you about etcetera and then 10 days straight you basically um sit you're in silence don't talk to anyone for 10 days yeah which is a that's a joy that part of it for me was unreal i don't have to talk to anyone i have to look at anyone i don't have to do anything to interact with anyone it's actually a great break no phones no nothing you know well that's all goes away but um but the hard part is you are sitting meditating cross-legged for about 12 to 14 hours i would imagine each day and and you just like they're just teaching you this technique these techniques of just you know self-awareness and you start to learn the structure of the mind the structure the human ego you start to learn um you know belief systems limiting belief systems transcending those belief systems you start to observe how this mind mind-body spirit organism is sort of operating and you start to actually you know go within and know know yourself a bit better and that was really because not only did it reset me but it gave me a technique that i felt was really solid that i could then take forward and what then crystallized after that is hey mate the purpose for this is not to do grand finals it's to actually find the joy in this sport again you know like this is what the whole purpose of this was and so it was like a full circle um you know awakening where i'm like uh man you're you're trying you're trying to do this sport to get an outcome being grand finals or whatever it is and the pats on the back but i've been pulled back here to can i do this sport which is a sport in a pretty hostile critical environment but actually enjoy it because umpiring is a pretty hard sport to enjoy you know there's you're measured on your on your errors that's how you're assessed how many mistakes did i make we never go into the rooms after a game and punch the air and say we won and any of this it's just i've only made this many areas as opposed to that many errors you know that's how you measure so so that became the journey you know from 2016 to the end was okay i'm going to find the joy in this sport i'm going to do this sport from a place of joy if i can and i'm going to retire loving this sport and so that was the ambition from then and i'd describe it as i transitioned from like an ambition phase in my life to a meaning phase you know i wanted to experience things you know sort of a greater depth and i was really valuable and you know i'm really grateful for that experience i'm really grateful for getting the opportunity to come back to then have that experience and then then what unfolded is um eventually through a number of techniques including vipassana and self-reflection uh you know observing myself and you know why did i have that certain attitude in that scenario and asking all these questions i found that joy you know and and a lot of that joy for umpiring doesn't necessarily come in the game which is a high sort of pressure environment it comes from the group and it comes from within and so that's sort of become nearly our group mantra that externally we're not going to get the validations on the ground you're not going to get the validations if we're going to enjoy this that's create an environment of joy where you know there's a genuine care genuine love for each other and we just love being around this afl umpiring group so that was sort of the transition and that takes this to last year and you know i got to the stage where i'm like well you know i'm 45 i've done everything i want to i'm just loving this sport i'm loving this group this is exactly what i wanted to achieve i'm here that's close this chapter you know yeah it's done so um yeah i did the prelim final last year and it was actually quite a nice ending i thought because everyone including myself was like what a way to go out of grand final and i didn't get it and i didn't get it because i didn't deserve it but when you look at it and i told you that whole story it's actually you know a nice metaphor to say well that's not why you know what it's about it's not what it's about it was about just the joy of the whole thing you know and um and what a way to finish being in sort of like a group a hub with all your mates and their families and meeting their partners and their kids and all that sort of stuff um and that was just a really cool environment to finish and i thought i just can't think of a better way to put a full stop on it and so that was the end crazy crazy the the camp thing is i have so many questions about this camp the the the pastor yeah okay like i listen to music i have my airpods in i'm listening to a podcast i'm making phone calls i'm listening to music i'm on my laptop i really really struggle being silent yeah like it's i get like really agitated and like you know it's because i've worked out in my head it's like i need my brain to always be stimulated to keep me not thinking about other things so now you know to the point of this and why i'm so interested in this fact is like when i'm in the car and i've had a big day i try and just sit in silence on the way home and put my phone away yeah because then it's sort of instead of listening to a music or zoning out into a podcast i'm actually just thinking about everything that i did that day and trying to slow down and and and pick off the points where the day was good what i've got to do next and i found it nearly it's actually really hard to do like i still don't like doing it i'd rather just put the easy option in and listen to a music or listen to a podcast is that the what what the silence is or am i just totally wrong there i mean if i was to explain it in a sporting context that most of your listeners would understand is the human mind is a function of the body and if we ran all day every day you wouldn't last long and you'd break down what we're taught to do at school is to think and then at work to think and now with social media to think and with our phones to think and then we read the paper and then we put the radio on and then we watch the news then we listen to podcasts our mind is going all the time and no one ever teaches us to give it a rest and so this is a technique that assists in giving it that rest and you know your example is a good one because i often do that as well if i'm traveling you know long distances i'll say i'm just going to sit in silence here and then you'll sense the energy within your body wanting to do something i i get twitchy like i just grab my phone try and call someone or yeah it's just being alone you know yeah and so this is yeah one one technique that assists you like what what do you do in that situation so you know and they will there will be an energy that you'll feel like it might be in your solar plexus and it's pulling you to do something that's like i've got to do it so then you go into that energy like you don't the thoughts are irrelevant the thoughts will just arise by reason of whatever sensation's going in your body because if an event occurs and you feel a certain way that then creates thoughts so what they're teaching you to do is sever that identification and attachment with that process so that when you feel a certain way you don't then identify with the thoughts that are dribbling through your mind with what you're saying it's obviously had a profound impact on you and and how you've gone about it and how you stay present and and how you you know became such a good officiate of the game with that the biggest thing you know nearly umpires are known for as well as doing your role is is brown light time brownlow metal is huge what's the process of doing brown little votes it's field umpires including emergency field umpires will sign it off but we'll get input from the emergency empire don't get given any stats or anything like that um although they might flash them up on the screen during the day from time to time but i think that's i haven't seen it much in later years but they used to and then the emergency empire might see that but um we will then at the end of the game you know after we've probably got changed and done all of that um just the field umpires and the emergency empire will go away in a room and we'll just start with the team sheets it's usually just a process of elimination no no no no no i tried to fit in a couple of times still yeah i know did you get anything no no i didn't i've been thinking about that we tried to check before you you're off the hook because you weren't i'm probably on this day but i was just certain i think it was around 22 2016. columbus melbourne i sung the d's absolutely killed them and and and and buried their finals hopes they're just recovering now from it in 2021 but yeah no votes no votes no yeah we've got a few wrong over the years yeah that's one of them that's clear look you're human yeah it's okay but that one was you've moved on at least oh yeah no i don't think about it at all yeah it's probably a big thing is that like just to say i did get a few votes yeah i didn't get any yeah um so the process is that and do you how do you think that by the time brownlow's on you have a good indication of who's going to win or is it just totally obscured i think it depends um you would often say the good teams are collingwood geelong etc you might be doing them eight times nine times and you might have a reasonable idea but in the last sort of um sort of seven eight years it doesn't seem to be that it seems like there's a spread where guys aren't really doing teams a lot and if that's the case i mean if you're doing a team three times you really wouldn't have much of a corner yeah so i i haven't had a hell of a lot of an idea in the last sort of six seven years because i just haven't done teams enough yeah it's a tough one i think like even in the last few years there's always i have a big theory on brownlow medals and it's this isn't a hit at the umpires it's more like the media as well you nearly have to deserve to win a brown low so at the end of the year they go for example lockheed neal but lockheed neal probably had a better year the year before he won the brown low and then he won it the next year yeah it's like you sort of have to nearly win it to then get recognised to then win it yeah like it's an interesting point i mean we would say no that's not the case but history says you know dane swan was the same yeah chris drudd was the same gary abel it was the same there's a few of them that were close and then the next year um you know they you know got got the nod so and i'm not sure you know about whether which year was better and all that sort of stuff but apart from the odd one in the last 20 years most of the people who've been pretty spot on yeah they're they're like pretty up there in in everyone's you know and there's the whole talk about onboarders award and all those types of things but we have gone through an era where the on boards have been pretty sort of elite as well what's what's next for for you now in the next phase uh post afl um um careers anything on the agenda what can we what can we be expecting to see i think in the short term and and i haven't really sort of contemplated a long term but in the short term i'm just enjoying like investing more time in the family and although i have always tried to do that the ability to just go you know like three weeks ago i just said to my little fella nid we're going hiking that's it friday just grabbed the staff went down the surf goes three days hiking up up up the coast i could never have done that you know just go on a holiday whenever we want just you know we're going fishing just doing all the stuff that when i grew up in warner well this is the stuff you did you know you just went fishing jumped on your bikes went mountain biking hike and all that sort of stuff so i'm just enjoying being how to do that so that's about the extent of it just work and family at the moment it's huge i actually bought a swag ago so if you and ned need some come more experience get down the great ocean yeah i need some more experience campers more than happy to jump in on that yeah do that just a swag just a swag that's all i've got love it um sean ryan thank you so much for for coming in today mate you are a serious operator um you've absolutely dominated the afl umpiring ranks and um should be extremely proud of yourself in a caper that is is so so tough and um yeah you've you've done an awesome role and um i know internally how how well respected you are in the afl community and it's absolute pleasure to have you in the studio to tell your story thanks to appreciate it appreciate having me in and appreciate the time and the questions and interest of it all and a big big thank you to bloke in a bar lager today i have a very special offer for you head to mrlicker.com.iu and order us up a bloke in a bar using the code friends to get free shipping to your door that's friends like me and you bloke in the bar has been unbelievable support to me and the show and with their help and commitment i've been able to reinvest back into the podcast bringing you more content with plenty of new ideas and concepts coming soon logan a bar backed me in to do this full time so the more we can support bloke in a bar by grabbing a slab it also helps build and grow dylan friends so check it out head to mrlicker.com.iu and order a slava bloke in a bar using the code friends at the checkout to get free shipping to your door

Channel: Dyl & Friends

Views: 4,282

Rating: 4.9529409 out of 5

Keywords: dyl and friends, dyl & friends, dylan buckley, podcast, vodcast, show, shaun ryan, afl, umpire, umpiring

Id: USuajVbJmPk

Length: 67min 23sec (4043 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021