RAIN, hail or shine he's been there, every Saturday and Sunday he's been there and after doing it for 23 years he still doesn't often get a thank you.
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It's because Nick Lander is a rugby league referee.
So over the weekend as players across the region made a point of thanking officials like Lander as part of respect round, he was delighted.
It's something he wants to see more of.
"This respect round is so good, it's aimed at trying to get people to understand no referee, no game," Lander said.
"You take every bit of praise you get, trust me, it's few and far between.
"For someone to walk up after a game and shake your hand - irrespective of the result, win lose or draw - if they walk up and shake your hand and say 'Thanks for doing a great job', that's always nice.
"Those little things, or like you go to some grounds and they have you lollies or a chocolate, it's like 'How good is that?', it makes you feel welcome.
"If there's no respect for referees, if people keep bashing referees verbally, we won't have them in the future."
While Lander has spent more than two decades overseeing league games in Bathurst and beyond, before he picked up a whistle he saw things from the other side as a player.
He played both rugby league and rugby union.
"I originally started with St Pat's juniors, I played at school, then I went and played with Railway before ending up with Charlestons," he said.
"I also played union for CSU and Bulldogs. With Bulldogs I won a premiership with them in second grade and I played with the Harlequins-Secret Squirrels for a couple of years and I won a couple of premierships there.
"Because I was a Bathurst boy, that's what you did, you played league down town. I went to Stannies so I played union Saturday morning and then went down town and played league in the afternoon."
As a player Lander admits there were times when he got annoyed with decisions made by referees, yet when there came an opportunity for him to officiate he was happy to put his hand up.
Lander noticed there was a shortage, so he filled it. Twenty-three years on he's still refereeing.
"The reason I became a referee was really pretty simple. My young bloke went out to play with St Pat's under 6s and we had no referees, so I put my hand up," he said.
"So I started in the juniors, it was about 2008 I was approached by the senior appointments board who said 'Look, would you like to do a game in seniors?'
"I had no interest in doing that, it didn't interest me. But they kept at me and I went and did one game and I fell in love with it."
Over the years Lander has had highlights such as controlling Group 10 grand finals and funny moments like when he tripped over a ball boy when running a line.
Unlike players who take part in one game on a weekend, for referees like Lander the schedule is much busier.
Their involvement comes on both Saturday and Sunday and involves doing centres and acting as touch judges.
Lander said doing a centre involves around eight kilometres of running.
"So we're running Saturday, Sunday every weekend and some guys are doing up to six games every weekend ... last round I did Friday night, Saturday and then Sunday, I did six games for the weekend," he said.
"I've refed in the snow, I've refed in the sleeting rain, you name it I've done it, conditions you wouldn't want your best friend running around in, I've been in them."
As well as dealing with packed weekends and at times terrible weather, unfortunately Lander and his fellow officials have also had to deal with abuse from players and spectators.
Lander appreciates the frustration that comes from an incorrect decision, but he pointed out the disparity in what happens when a referee makes a mistake as opposed to a player.
When it's a player, his team-mates offer encouragement and tell him not to worry about the mistake. When it's a referee, there's often verbal abuse.
"Look it is really, really tough and we understand people get frustrated, we get decisions wrong sometimes. It's not a perfect world," he said.
"We make mistakes, the same as players, but it just seems like people can bash the referee - verbally that is - and that's a deterrent for kids.
"I understand a footballer, they're in the heat of the battle and are out there getting belted. I get that people don't want us to make mistakes, but it's human nature, we do miss things.
"In the scheme of a game if a referee makes three mistakes, that's nothing compared to your side giving away say a six or seven penalty count, dropping the ball 10 times, dropping the ball over the line twice or something like that.
"No-one takes that into consideration, no-one looks at it like that, they all look at the one or two errors a referee makes."
As well as copping plenty of earfuls during his time as a referee, Lander has also seen changes for the good.
He's a huge fan of respect round and has enjoyed seeing more juniors become involved in refereeing.
But the retention rate of those young officials is low. Lander said the respect needs to be present in every game, not just for one round each season, to see more of those junior officials stick at it for longer.
"When I first started we had a reasonable number of senior referees, but not a huge amount of junior referees. That's basically why I started doing what I've done," he said.
"We've ended up with really, really good numbers of juniors, but translating from juniors to seniors, there's a minimum of juniors coming through that stick with it.
"Our association is an aging group of referees, we age from 64 to about 13 ... but where we do struggle is from 15s upwards. In our senior Group 10 competition, we only have nine senior referees to chose from.
"Group 11 it's similar ... people need to remember no referees, no games."
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