Funny HonyBy Paul Daffey
Sat 23 Apr, 2011.....
By 25, Honybun had played at six clubs in four states, including Carlton and Richmond. His last stop before finally settling into an AFL career in 1988 was East Devonport in Tasmania.
At East Devonport, he and a tearaway teenager called Graham Wright (who later was a star Collingwood wingman) almost dragged their club to a premiership.
Kevin Sheedy, renowned for studying tapes, saw footage of that finals series.
As Essendon was choc-full of big blokes, he recommended Honybun to his mate, Kevin Bartlett, the incoming Richmond coach. 'KB' stuck his head over the fence of Honybun's Brunswick home and asked him down to Punt Road.
"I identified with Richmond," he says. "It was almost a country footy club. There was still an old tiger skin in the directors' boardroom."
At Tigerland, Honybun wore 42, a number he could truly make his own. He had a day out at Waverley when he had a career-high 33 possessions and caught the speedy Nicky Winmar holding the ball.
The next week, a Carlton defender crunched his back to the extent it remained a problem for the rest of his career. Honybun's father's words about the insurance aspect of education came back to him.
At Richmond in the early 1990s, there were five players who were joked about as "the educated ones". Besides Honybun, there was Sean Bowden (law), Trevor Poole and Mark Stockdale (physiotherapy) and Brendon Gale, whose academic interests were wide-ranging.
At this time, Honybun and Gale reflected on their role model, Brent Crosswell, who once said it was an aim during his footy career to stay at university as long as possible.
When Honybun's back injury finally ended his career at 30, he was still studying his
research master's degree in agricultural economics and tax. He worked and studied at Melbourne University for another 18 months or so, and was starting to work for agricultural consultants.
Honybun then left the university to work for consultants, often crunching data until well into the night, but it was when he joined the ATO that his interests and strengths came together.
Of the lessons he learned from footy, he begins by cautioning against impetuousness.
A few years ago, St Kilda coach Ross Lyon did some research on Honybun to see whether he might become a ruck coach. Lyon put some questions to Gale, who told him Honybun was a top clubman, but he "walks to the beat of his own drum". Honybun took the assessment as a compliment.
"I think I had a good reputation as a clubman," he says. "But possibly I was a bit of an individual as well."
http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/112202/default.aspx
