Simon Successfully Swaps His Stick For A Microphone

Simon Orchard has seen a lot of sport at the elite level, but on Thursday night it will be the first time he witnesses the speed, the excitement and the raw emotion of greyhound racing at its highest level, in the Sportsbet Dapto Megastar final.

Simon is the latest addition to the Greyhound Racing NSW media team, and his face is becoming familiar to those at the Dapto track each week.

“I’m really looking forward to the Megastar Final. I’ve watched group 1 racing on TV a bunch of times, but this will be my first one at the track,” he said.

“Last week was phenomenal for me. I’ve seen a few meetings at Dapto now, but this was the first time I’d seen some really, really quick dogs.

“I was speaking to (racecaller) Matt Jackson in the broadcast box after ZIPPING Kyrgios’ heat and he turned to me and said “gee that was impressive, wasn’t it?”. He was right. Seeing it live, that was the first time I have gone “Wow, that’s a serious race dog.”

“Looking through some stats this morning, there’s a lot of the dogs in the race that you can make a case for. The time of Kyrgios (29.40s) stands out, but the run of Sound Of Silence, getting barreled, getting held up, showing amazing track sense, and storming home to win, that was almost as impressive as the Kyrgios time.

“But more than that, the emotion I saw last week from people like Kayla-Jane COLEMAN, that was special. The love she has for that dog and how proud she was of the achievement to get to the final, that’s what I love about sport, and this sport in particular.”

Simon knows a little bit about elite level sport. He represented Australia in hockey and was part of the Kookaburras’ team which won bronze at the 2012 London Olympics, and won multiple gold medals with the team at the World Cup, Champions Trophy and the Commonwealth Games.

Originally from the Hunter Valley, Simon spent more than a decade in Perth playing his sport, before he and his wife Airlie - herself an Australian representative with the Hockeyroos – made the decision to return east.

He worked with WIN Television in Wollongong then with the Illawarra Hawks, before a meeting with GRNSW Chief Operating Officer Wayne Billett would eventually lead to a career change.

“I guess the sporting career was always going to come to an end and luckily I had a pretty enthusiastic father who made sure I was studying throughout my sporting career, and once I was finished, it just made that transition - which can be really difficult - a lot easier.

“I always knew I liked sport but it’s probably only in the last five or six years that I have had a love of racing and chasing. With my group of friends, we started going to race meetings and have a night at the dogs at Cannington in Perth where I lived, and I developed a natural inclination to be more interested in the sport.

“The thing that drew me the most was the genuine, salt of the earth people in the sport who I find I can associate with the best.

“Wayne got me involved with his hockey club at Dapto. The first time we met for a coffee was to talk about hockey, and we spoke about greyhounds for about an hour before we got onto hockey. 

“I was really interested in the organisation and the path greyhounds have taken, I guess that planted the seed for him to check in with me from time to time to see how I was doing with work.

“I was happy at the Hawks, but this is my passion area, and I always wanted to get into this caper, so when the opportunity arose I jumped at it.”

Simon wasn’t the only winner according to Wayne Billett, GRNSW fared just as well in his recruitment.

“While his hockey career speaks for itself, Simon brings to GRNSW some outstanding experience from working in various forms of the media, and importantly he has a real passion for his role,” he said. 

“He has already brought some new ideas into our team, but significantly he also has a sound knowledge of the sport, a real affinity with our participants, and just loves greyhound racing.”

Asking any elite athlete for just one specific highlight of a decorated career is unfair. But, you have to ask! 

“In my sport, everyone wants to go to an Olympics, that’s the top of the tree,” Simon said. “The first game in London (in 2012), against South Africa - I don’t get too emotional about that stuff, I’m never too high, never too low, but I remember walking off the pitch and getting a little bit emotional because that was my lifetime dream achieved ... I had done what I wanted to do.

“The medals and the World Cups and Champions Trophies and Commonwealth Games are all special, but honestly at the moment, I get just as much satisfaction from running out for Dapto as I did playing for Australia a lot of the times.

“I just love the camaraderie and the friendships and testing myself, which is what I can see in a lot of these greyhound trainers as well … bettering themselves and trying to push the limits a little bit.”