Mike Smaill is just one more in a long line of New Zealanders who have switched from rugby to league, moved to Australia and then made a big impact in their adopted country.
But this 27-year-old's story is just a little different.
He almost certainly still has to put up with the sheep jokes - it is not that different - but he has won the respect of his Australian team-mates.
And he has achieved that without making a single hit-up or even a single bone-jarring tackle.
Smaill is a whistle blower and he is pretty good at it.
So good he was recently named rookie of the year by the New South Wales Rugby League Referees Association.
Not bad for a bloke who grew up on the Taieri and appeared to have a promising future as a rugby referee.
Smaill, who is has returned to Dunedin for a holiday, started refereeing when he was just 15 after he was encouraged to give it a go by a school teacher.
He had a natural flair for the job and went on to referee senior rugby.
He controlled the 2012 Dunedin premier club semifinal. But not long after that he was lured to league.
He had been contemplating a change but rugby league southern zone general manager Steve Martin also helped show Smaill what might be possible.
''I think it was just time for a change and I've always been really passionate about rugby league,'' Smaill said.
''And Steve had some really good ideas and there were a few pathways he showed me that I could take advantage of. I really liked what they had to offer.''
Initially, he found the switch tougher than he expected.
''I thought I knew the game. But for most of that first season I thought `what have I done?'.
''It wasn't until the end of the season when I refereed the West Coast and Canterbury that I thought `I can do this'.
''Most of your learning is done on the field, so a lot of it is training so you are fit enough. That is something which took me some time to really understand.
''The work you do behind the scenes is what allows you to do well on the field.''
Having made a promising start, Smaill went on a development trip to Sydney and liked what he saw a bit too much.
The folk at New South Wales were only to happy to pick up one of ours and put him to work immediately.
''They put me through my paces last year - I refereed 140 games pretty much just to learn the game properly and to qualify for the [New South Wales junior representative] squad.
''Then we trained during summer and I had a really good season in the squad. Once again I was just refereeing a lot of games and continuing to develop.
''New South Wales Rugby League have been just absolutely wonderful. They have taken me in as one of their own and really looked after me.''
Smaill, who earns ''a couple of hundred bucks a game'' and works for a printing company, said his next step was to make the reserve grade squad.
In 108 years, there have been fewer than 1000 ''graded'' referees, so it would be quite an achievement.
And as for the abuse which comes with the role, Smaill said it was harder from the sideline than in the middle ''where you can blank it out''.
