Intro Voice over [00:00:03] This is a Sport Australia podcast production.

Cam Tradell [00:00:08] Hello and welcome to our coaching and officiating podcast series. My name is Cam Tradell and I am the Project Lead for Coaching Officiating at Sport Australia. Over this series, we will look at what it takes to modernise Australia's coaching and officiating system.  Each podcast we will be joined by a special guest who will share experiences and practical tips on their topics.

Cam Tradell [00:00:34] I am fortunate enough today to have Claire Polosak join us on the podcast, Claire's the first female ICC umpire to officiate in a men's cricket Test match in the world. So we're very, very fortunate to have her and to speak to us. So welcome, Claire. Thanks very much for joining us.

Claire Polosak [00:00:50] No, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to the experience of having a chat with you.

Cam Tradell [00:00:54] Thanks very much, Claire, I'd love to get some ideas or some sort of background on some of the ways that you make decisions on the field and being an official or being an umpire. Did you play cricket growing up or were you exposed through the umpiring pathway?

Claire Polosak [00:01:10] Yeah, I never played cricket growing up. I grew up in a regional town and at the time there wasn't that I remember any girls’ cricket and I didn't want to play with the boys. I guess I was too scared to and I know lots of girls did play with the boys, but I was a bit scared to do that and then I followed cricket from a distance. I had all the cricket players on my walls growing up and then every year mum and dad would be our family holiday would be to come to the Sydney Test match. And then when I was about 15, a friend, actually her dad, suggested that I complete the umpiring course because I like cricket. And so it did take me, I'm not sure how many times, but it was at least three times to pass the exam. I think being 15, 16 and never having played cricket definitely impacted the knowledge and the awareness around the laws of cricket. But every time I completed the assessment, I got a little bit better. And so it was just something I was really determined to do. And what I was I was forever jumping up and down when I finally passed the assessment task.

Cam Tradell [00:02:06] In really high-pressure situations. It's got some real learnings that we can take from what you do to what happens at the community level, knowing that there's different levels of pressure and so on at the community. But I'd love to sort of get an idea of some of the processes that you've got with regards to how you make your decisions. And if you can sort of broaden out on that when you do make a bad decision or you're aware of making a bad decision, how do you go about managing that on the field, knowing that you're out there for a long time?

Claire Polosak [00:02:34] Yeah, great question there. So I think at umpiring at any level, if you are striving to be 100 percent in every game that you do or even if every over that you do, it's potentially setting you up to not be perfect. So you really it's all about striving for excellence and what are the processes that you can put in place to ensure that you're doing the best that you can in order to make the best decisions as possible. When I am out in the middle, I have found that when I've made mistakes, it's usually because I've rushed my decision making processes. So it's really about slowing it down. You've got if you're umpiring, particularly in cricket, between, you know, the delivery, the fielders appealing and then you having to make your decision, you've actually got more time than what you think you do. So just taking it, taking a second to have a breath replay, I replay the ball in my mind to make sure that what I saw the first time matches up with where I where I'm thinking and then make your decision based on the information in front of you. Umpires in cricket are making decisions every delivery, even if there's no appeal. And so it's just about making sure you can tick off those boxes as you get towards the final result. So I think for an LBW decision, for example, if the ball is going on to hit the stumps, that's actually the last question I ask myself. You start off with, is the ball a fair delivery where did the ball pitch, what was point of impact? What was the line of the interception? And then was the ball going on to hit the stumps? So it's really about slowing your processes down to make sure that you can take in all the information that's available to you and to use that to your best of ability. But something that with all sports, I imagine that new umpires or new officials are going to make mistakes, and it's about learning from those mistakes to work out why they occurred and then to improve on them next time. So that with it comes into routines. So you mentioned about being on the field for a long period of time, if I start a day of cricket an 96 over day and I think I've got seven, six and a half, seven hours of cricket in front of me, you usually exhausted before you start. So I'll actually break the I'll break the over down or day down. I'll break the day down into even just two over blocks, so when I'm at square leg I'll say to myself, "let's have two good overs Claire, let's have two good overs". And then every time I'm at square leg, I repeat that to myself. When I'm at the bowlers end, I have a couple physical triggers and also some mental triggers that allow me to switch up when the ball is about to become in play and then to switch down when the ball is dead. We don't really talk about it a switching on and off because there's always something for us to be looking at. But there are certain points during the game where we don't need to concentrate as hard as when the ball is in play.

Cam Tradell [00:05:29] That's really interesting. where you're talking about always something to be looking at and I'm guessing that there's times when the things off the delivery, so outside of the delivery with potentially, you know, the chatter around the field or a little bit of banter, someone isn't happy about a decision, whether it's one that you've made or one that one of their friends have made or, you know, team mates where there's a dropped catch or there's where they think they've been hard done by. And you've got those other by playing things going on. How do you manage that with regards to trying to keep your focus on what's important on the field when you've got all these other things to sort of manage as well?

Claire Polosak [00:06:01] Yeah, I think it's important to acknowledge when potentially there's a decision that hasn't gone the right way has happened. If you acknowledge it, it means that you contain it, which means that you can then then move on to it, move on from it. Sorry. And I have in the past, you don't really want to be doing this a lot of the time. But I had a game where I made a decision. It was incorrect and the captain was very agitated about it. And he came up to me and he wanted to talk about it. And I just said to him, I know I've made an error, but we can talk about it after the game. And when we did talk about it after the game, he actually said that acknowledging it enabled him to relax. He knew that he wasn't going to have to have had a discussion with me about it being wrong because I knew it was wrong. And that just sort of cut it, nipped that behaviour in the bud. And he was able to go on concentrating with his own captaining of his team. But it's not something you want to do all the time. And I think it's really important to push if you have made a real or perceived error, you should try, and it's easier said than done, just like playing,  officiating practice is what gets us there. But if you're able to push it to the side so that you can focus on the next delivery, because if you're focusing on the next delivery or the next passage of play, then you'll still your mind will be in the past. And in order to avoid making errors, we need to make sure our mind is where our body is. And that's and so it's so much easier said than done. But if you can push it aside for me, I actually write it down in my notepad, so it's like a shopping list that I don't have to remember to remember it later on and then I can go back and go through, hopefully not a too long a list, but go through the instances where I have potentially made an error and try and work out what happened that didn't enable me to make a really good decision at that point in time.

Cam Tradell [00:07:52] That's fantastic insight to the self awareness you've got. Do you ever write down things that are positive, that have happened? So something that you picked up and that's almost a skill that you want to put in the bank to perpetuate that behaviour? Is it always a negative that happens or is it sometimes reinforcing a positive?

Claire Polosak [00:08:08] Yeah, it's funny you say, I think humans recognise or notice negative things seven times more than positive things. So it is only the incidences, I guess, that don't make my own expectations that I write down to address and to work out why they occur. But you're right. I mean, I think acknowledging it and celebrating the wins are really important and teamwork, it's sort of teamwork is really important. You know, we're out there on two people versus 11 people in the field. And, you know, when your partner makes a really good decision, give them a little thumbs up. Don't make it too obvious. But, you know, if your partner has made a really good decision, if my partner has made a really good decision when the ball is dead and I’ve got eye contact with them because we have eye contact, every delivery, just a little thumbs up by the side, just reinforces what you're saying there. The positive decisions that they've made say this to acknowledge that that I have had a really good decision there so that they can be  confident and comfortable in what they're doing as well.

Cam Tradell [00:09:13] It's interesting because you're talking about the ways that you're supporting each other as another team on the field, which I think is really, really important. And seeing what happens at the elite level where the scrutiny under a decision is so intense with regards to it must come up on the big screen or it used to come up on the big screen and you can be scrutinised and at least you can get some closure with regards to good, bad decision. But at the community level, I'm guessing it becomes more difficult because it becomes about an opinion and everyone on the field has got an opinion from their angle. You know, from cricket terms, people calling LBWs from fine leg is a bit of a stretch. I just I love the way that good umpires can really manage that. Keeping in mind that the experience on the field becomes so important, do you try and influence the feeling on the field, or manage it being an upbeat environment?

Claire Polosak [00:10:02] Yeah, I think having clear communication and good people management skills will get you a long way on the sporting field. In cricket, it's very much that umpires are there to facilitate the game. It's not about us being the centre of attention and we are only brought into the game when the laws require us to be. So when I'm umpiring, I actually imagined myself as a jack in the box, so I only come out onto the only come out or I only speak when I'm spoken to by a player unless obviously, I'm required to do so, I think remembering that the game is there for the players at a community level, the players, and this is just sort of said to me just the other day at players, you know, they pay heavy subscriptions in some competitions to play cricket and it's their outlet for the week. And so they want to enjoy the game as much as you do as an official. So it's really about just ensuring that you can facilitate the game within the laws, within the spirit safely and just allow the games to happen in front of you.

Cam Tradell [00:11:04] Fantastic insight. That's amazing. I think that that's the piece that becomes so important is that enjoyment is really the factor.

Claire Polosak [00:11:13] If you if you if you don't enjoy umpiring and I imagine it's for any sport if you don't enjoy it, there are so many other things you could be doing with your time than officiating the sports, So I agree enjoyment 100 percent.

Cam Tradell [00:11:26] With that in mind, as you were coming through the system, you're talking about, you know, the difference between where you're at the moment in performance, working also in community and also working with the state side. Way back when you were coming through the system, was there ever a piece of information that you wish you were armed with to make your experience as a community coach coming through the system better?

Claire Polosak [00:11:52]  The one thing that I wish I did more was ask more questions of my other officials that I stood with, because when we're just learning out there so much, we don't know and you don't know, you don't know it. So I wish that when I was coming first coming through when I first started umpiring, that that I had the bit more courage, I guess, to ask questions, to ask why umpires do something in particular. And it just might have got me the information a little bit quicker than having to sort of find it out and bumble along by myself. So, I mean, the support networks were there. I just didn't use them probably as effectively early on as what I should have.

Cam Tradell [00:12:27] Yes. And when you were coming through asking people what they will almost help you with regards to that review process is important. When you were doing education and training, did you find that you were able to ask those questions through your courses, etc., or did you find that you did most of your learning when you're out out in the field? In the middle? .

Claire Polosak [00:12:50] Yeah, you can't replace watching balls in the middle to a large extent. And just getting when you when you first start out, just do as many games as you possibly can. I would even head to my local cricket team and standing in there nets during the training sessions just to again, just to listen to the sounds, to watch the ball or to watch what's happening, just to increase the number of balls that I was seeing to to increase the number of experiences that you can put in your backpack so that when you are in the middle of the field, you can pull them out of your backpack or pull them out of your toolkit for things that you've already seen. Because as we know, the more you do something, the easier it gets.

Cam Tradell [00:13:27] I can just imagine you look where you are now and you think about... What a journey.

Claire Polosak [00:13:33] And if you'd have told 16-year-old Claire the opportunities you would have had by the time she was 33, then there's just no way that she would have thought it was possible. So I think it's really exciting to see what comes next, not for me, but for the next generation of officials of any sport coming through with the increased opportunities that are coming around for everybody.

Cam Tradell [00:13:51] I'm so excited for what's happening next, for Claire Polosak, because understanding where you're at and seeing what you've done and the way that you handle yourself on the field, the way you handle players is second to none in this country. And it's something that I genuinely enjoy watching and it honestly adds to my enjoyment when I watch, and I'm certain that that's the case for a lot of other people. Thank you so much for joining us today, Claire. Really appreciate your time.

Claire Polosak [00:14:18] No ,you're very, very welcome.

Cam Tradell [00:14:22] Thank you for joining me today, if you'd like to find out more about Coaching and Officiating or have any feedback or questions, please email us at Workforce@sportaus.gov.au. My name is Cam Tradell and I look forward to you joining me for the next podcast in the coaching and officiating series.