Have whistle, will ref: Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri and his Acme Thunderer, ready for club Premier match No. 200, at Elwood Park, Hastings. Photo / Warren Buckland
Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri must be a good boy. He loves his peas. He's had one for 10 years, and the other disappeared, dearly missed, with the rest of his rugby refereeing gear when his car was stolen in Auckland.
It's all part of the amazing story of the 36-year-old who at Elwood Park, Hastings, on Saturday referees his 200th Premier club rugby match.
At more than 20 games a year for 20 years - the 200 Premier club matches, plus 50 mainly National Provincial Championship first-class matches, plus the games moving through the grades, that's a lot of football.
But he's had only two whistles.
The latest, the plastic Acme Thunderer with the wooden pea, boiled up every now and then and put in the hot-water cupboard to dry out ready for its next big shrill.
The ultimate possession for the rugby whistler, perhaps the equivalent of a guitarist's Martin or Fender, or a biker's Harley. "You get attached to it," he says.
It's part of his passion for the game, and stemming from the realisation many years ago that he wasn't going to be an All Black, his passion for refereeing – a breath of whistling fresh air as rugby, the national game for all people, struggles with getting enough refs to do all the games.
There's a bit of symbolism attached to Saturday's game, in which championship Maddison Trophy winner Hastings Rugby and Sports, the only unbeaten side in the 2021 first round Nash Cup rugby, play riverside club Clive.
When he played rugby, on the way to realising he was never going to be an All Black, it was as a young schoolboy with Celtic, and Hastings in the first year of Hastings R&S as a merger of Celtic Hasting and Hastings HSOB, while on the Whaitiri side some of the uncles played over 200 games for Clive, although Eden-Whaitiri did not play for the riverside club.
It was in the very earliest of days of Elwood Park, while still at intermediate school, that he first refereed a game, not at that time trained for the role but already starting to get an inkling for it.
It wasn't long before he was off to King's College in Auckland - a school that at the time was establishing a reputation buying out the young rugby talents from the provinces.
Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri is adamant that, even though he had played for Hawke's Bay Under 13s, he would never have been one of the King's targets, and it was his parents who sent him there. "I definitely wasn't poached," he says.
By his third year he was passing the ball on, grabbing a whistle and signing on with the Auckland Rugby Referees Association.
When most young rugby players wanted to be Jonah Lomu or the then rising star Richie McCaw, Sheldon Eden-Whaitiri idolised Steve Walsh, the young, up-and-coming referee who first refereed an NPC game at the age of 20 and an international at the age of 26.
His first match in the ARRA jersey was a schools match in 2001 and, teethed on the likes of Under 19s and Senior Under 85kg, his first Premier match, of what was to become a list of 122 such matches in Auckland, was an Auckland Gallaher Shield game between Waitakere and glamour club Grammar Carlton in 2006.
It was both a confronting and learning experience, given the number of top players in Auckland, All Blacks many, where a just-turned-20 referee was close to the most junior on the park at Waitakere.
The home team captain was Auckland, Blues and All Blacks halfback Ofisa Tonu'u, who certainly had his own interpretations of the rules.
"He gave me a sharp introduction," recalls Eden-Whaitiri. "He did most of the refereeing."
It was in the same year that he first refereed a Premier match in Hawke's Bay, on weekend exchange from Auckland, a Nash Cup game between Napier Old Boys Marist and Clive.
One of the touch judges was Kelvin Deaker, already well into an international refereeing career that had included the 2003 Rugby World Cup tournament in Australia, and one of a vast wealth of high-ranking referees from Hawke's Bay during the past 15-20 years.
It was a year after that first Premier club game that he referred for the first time at national level, a Heartland Rugby match between West Coast and Thames Valley in Greymouth, while he was at law school in Auckland – something from which he graduated, although never going into practice.
His games at the upper levels included 12 at Air New Zealand-ITM-Mitre 10 cups level, the toughest, but most enjoyable, being the "local derbies" such as Auckland and North Harbour, and Canterbury against Tasman.
The closest he got to a professional career in refereeing (meaning Super rugby and internationals) was as referee manager for the Otago Rugby Union in 2013-17, the equivalent of current Hawke's Bay rugby referee manager Keith Groube, and it was during that time he had his only Premier grade championships final – spreading his club refereeing to a fourth union with North Otago's request for an independent to control it' big game at Centennial Park in Oamaru.
Premier championship finals appointments are among the most prized – after all, there is only one each year, and Auckland and Hawke's Bay have had plenty of highly regarded referees queuing each year.
He has, however, refereed three of Heartland Rugby's Meads Cup finals, the most memorable in 30C heat at Ruatoria in 2012 when East Coast came back from 3-27 down with half an hour to go beat Wanganui 29-27.
There was drama, and spectators, all over the place at Whakarua Park, with the visitors down to 14 players for the crucial last 10 minutes after a player was sin-binned by the referee with still one major stanza remaining.
East Coast scored the match-winning try in the last minute or so, the East Coast fans invaded the field and the conversion couldn't be taken until the spectators were cleared from the field. East Coast's conversion attempt failed, and according to a report Wanganui "forced" a knock-on at the kick-off, and Eden Whaitiri's whistle – the one he still has – was blown for fulltime.
Like whistles, the yellow and red cards of temporary suspension from the game or actual last-straw banishment are parts of the refereeing "toolbox", albeit ones he says he's had to use only sparingly.
While there are situations where ordering a player out of a game with a red card, could lead to likely judiciary banishment for the game for weeks, months or even years, he struggles to recall the last time he had to pull one out.
Similarly, it'd be a decade or more since he experienced any of the sideline behaviour or referee abuse of the type now being cited as a significant factor in difficulty keeping referees in the game or recruiting new officials.
He says there are also other reasons, such as those afflicting most sports with the work environment having made it more difficult for people to take on the commitment required for refereeing, and playing, and club official roles.
Thus, and with some irony, in days where big games are often the domain of young referees, some with an eye to refereeing as a professional career, there is an ageing issue in which, to a degree, Eden-Whaitiri is part of one end.
He says there was a time when he aspired to the career pathway, but assesses that about 2011-12 he might have become "a bit cocky", and thought he was "already there", when there was still a way to go.
Hawke's Bay has 11 referees who have had more than 15 years' service, including one with more than 60 years, three with more than 40 years, four with more than 30, and six with more than 30 years.
There are three doing the Eden-Whaitiri thing, starting under 19, 13 aged 20-29 years, 12 aged 30-39, and 29 aged over 50, which includes referee coaches who may at time be under pressure to go back into service.
Referee manager Groube says there are 26 under 35, and 46 over.
Eden-Whaitiri's "other sport" has been cricket, at which, again he concedes, he was never going to play at the top level, but at which he did also move into professional levels as match officials manager for New Zealand Cricket.
He had been hoping to extend that career in England county cricket last year, until the Covid-19 crisis emerged, leading to his return to Hawke's Bay where he works in Hastings as an account manager with MediaWorks.
No longer seeing himself on the professional rugby refereeing pathway, it's clear where his loyalties remain.
He still loves his peas, and says he will be refereeing so long as he's fit enough and it's still a passion.
"I can't see me still doing it in my 50s," he says.
The rules are tough, complex and ever-changing, but it changes little for the ref, who says: "I love club rugby, I love the clubrooms, I will go as long as I can."
His game this weekend is one of five bringing to an end the round-robin phase of this year's Nash Cup, with Hastings R&S already guaranteed a place in next weekend's final. In other matches, MAC play Napier OBM at Flaxmere Park, Central play Napier Tech OB in Waipukurau, Taradale play Havelock North, and Tamatea play Napier Pirate at Bill Matthewson Park in Hastings.
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