Michael Stone is an Australian former rugby league referee. Stone began his refereeing career in the Western Suburbs Junior Rugby League in 1978. He was subsequently graded to referee in the

New South Wales Rugby League The New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) is the governing body of rugby league in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory and is a member of the Australian Rugby League Commission. It was formed in Sydney on 8 August 1907 and was ...

(NSWRL), gaining his first first-grade match in 1981. Stone controlled 206 first-grade matches between 1981 and 1989. He then became a referees' coach from 1991 to 2008, being the coaching co-ordinator from 1992 to 1999. In 1983, Stone was involved in an unusual series of events that saw three different referees required to control a first grade match between Easts and Canterbury-Bankstown. Stone was carried from the field with a leg injury after four minutes. The reserve-grade referee took over, but experienced cramps at halftime. The third-grade referee then finished the match. In 1986, Stone was responsible for the quickest send-off in rugby league, having dismissed

Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Belmore, a suburb in the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney. They compete in the NRL Telstra Premiership, as well as competitions facilita ...

player Peter Kelly for a head-high tackle in the first tackle of the match. In the same year, he refereed the first tryless grand final of the modern era, when

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

defeated

Canterbury-Bankstown Canterbury-Bankstown is a customary region of Sydney, Australia, in the south-western suburbs. The area is located around the Bankstown railway line, to the west of the St George region and to the south of the Inner West region. The suburbs o ...

4-2. In game 2 of the

1988 State of Origin series The 1988 State of Origin series was the seventh annual three-game series between the New South Wales and Queensland representative rugby league football teams to be contested entirely under 'state of origin' selection rules. Queensland enjoyed th ...

, Stone enraged the local Brisbane crowd when he sent

Wally Lewis Walter James Lewis AM (born 1 December 1959) is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and coached in the 1980s and 1990s. He became a commentator for television coverage of the spo ...

to the sin-bin for five minutes. The crowd showered the ground with beer cans, and the match had to be stopped until order was restored and the ground was cleared of rubbish.

Career highlights

*1986 –

City vs Country A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

Grand Final Primarily in Australian sports, a grand final (sometimes colloquially abbreviated to "grannie") is a game that decides a sports league's premiership (or championship) winning team, i.e. the conclusive game of a finals (or play-off) series. Sy ...

*1987 –

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

City vs Country Origin City vs Country Origin was an annual Australian rugby league football match that took place in New South Wales between City and Country representative sides. The City side represented the Sydney metropolitan area. While technically it was Sydne ...

State of Origin A State of Origin competition is a type of sporting event between players representing their state or territory. State of Origin began in Australian rules football on 8 October 1977 between Western Australia (WA) and Victoria, at Subiaco Oval ...

, PNG vs NZ, State of Origin Exhibition (USA),

*1988 –

*1989 –

Honours and awards

*1989 - Life Membership of the NSW Rugby League Referees Association, Trophy for Outstanding Contribution to the NSWRLRA *2006 - Namesake of the Michael Stone Medal, awarded annually to the NSWRLRA member judged the "referee's referee"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Mick Year of birth missing (living people) Living people People from New South Wales Australian rugby league referees