As a kid Shannon Byrnes tried his hand at a variety of different sports before football took hold of him. "I played pretty much everything. I was in athletics [and] I played tennis and cricket as well as a junior. I played basketball a couple of times a week down at the Shepparton sport stadium too and I played a lot of golf."
Byrnes' trademark pace at Geelong can be traced back to his days at athletics. The speedy forward excelled at state level in a variety of events, including high jump. "I won a few medals at state but I was always the shorter man, so long distance wasn't really my friend. It was all about 100m, 200m, hurdles and high jump, believe it or not! I won a couple of medals in that."
Despite showing potential in athletics, Byrnes always knew that his future was with football. "I was just around footy all the time. I played on Saturday and Sunday and with dad working for the AFL, I was able to go to a lot of AFL games like grand finals. I think I went to about eight or nine grand finals as a kid and a lot of preliminary finals. Footy was just always something that I wanted to do."
Byrnes grew up following Collingwood and idolised Nathan Buckley, but that all changed when he was selected by Geelong in the 2002 rookie draft. "It's true, you either love them (Collingwood) or you hate them. I did use to love them and now I can't stand them, but I also loved Nathan Buckley. I remember lining up with him in the preliminary final in 2007. I think it was a bit surreal as I used to have his poster on the wall. It was just a little bit weird."
At 26, the two-time premiership player is now taking time to pursue some other ambitions, including becoming a fireman. "I'm sort of looking into the fire brigade at the moment. It's always something I've held a bit of an interest in. I figure I've got the fitness components so I'm just looking more and more into it. My interest has grown over the years and I'm looking to start up at a station in the next couple of weeks and just see how I go with that."
Entering the fire brigade isn't as simple as signing up. Byrnes will need to pass a range of fitness tests before sitting an aptitude test and undergoing a psychological evaluation. "They have got levels of fitness that you have got to be up to, like a 10 in a beep test and something like that. I don't know all the tests to be honest but ... I knew I'd have most of them covered, which you would hope if you're a footballer. Then there's an aptitude test which I think 3000 people sit every year and then there is a shortlist from that brought down. There are a few things to get through to be able to become one, that's for sure."
When he's not on the training track, you can be sure to find Byrnes battling the wind at 13th Beach golf course in Barwon Heads with teammates Steve Johnson and Tom Hawkins. "I love my golf. Stevie's the best though. He plays off about six so he can hit a pretty good ball and Tommy Hawkins is off about eight or nine and I play off about 13. My driving gets a bit erratic at times with that bloody wind down at Barwon Heads. It only has to be a little bit off and the wind takes it. It's not easy finding balls in that rough either."
