“I Can’t Recommend it Highly Enough”: How Mickey Edwards’ Placement Set Up a “Lifetime of Stability”

From a fan favourite at the SCG to a County Cricket combatant at Lord’s, Mickey Edwards saw it all during his decade-long career in the game. When injury forced the pace bowler into retirement, the ACA’s GamePlan program facilitated a rewarding placement in the finance world.

Mickey Edwards, who enjoyed a decade-long cricketing career, says there are similarities between being in AMP’s Bridge Street boardroom and on the SCG pitch.

“If you’re faced with a new challenge in the middle of the game, the batter does something a little bit funky, you’ve got to be able to learn pretty quickly and upskill on the spot,” says Edwards, who played for New South Wales, Sydney Sixers, and Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

Following a foot injury sustained at Lord’s in a match between Yorkshire and Middlesex, Edwards called time on a fulfilling, albeit injury-riddled, career in cricket, which saw him become one half of the first pair of brothers (alongside Jack, five years younger) to play for New South Wales since Steve and Mark Waugh.

He is also fondly remembered from a stint as an Australian Test substitute fielder in 2017, when the SCG crowd rapturously took to the Manly local after he replaced David Warner in the field against Pakistan.

His nagging injuries did ensure he kept his post-cricket career at the forefront of his mind, and started studying midway through his career, on an economics and finance degree.

“I started economics just as a broad subject that I could tick off alongside playing cricket and be left with a pretty general degree at the end of it,” says Edwards.

“But then I developed more of an interest in the markets, equity valuation, market analysis, and investing in general. So, that's the area that I've tried to go into now, something along the lines of analysis.”

Upon finishing his career, Edwards was fast-tracked into the offices of AMP with the help of the ACA’s Work Placement program.

“I was put in touch with my transition manager, who connected me with Erin [Devlin, of Infront Sports] for the placement” Edwards said.

“Erin arranged it all,” says Edwards. “Arranged the dates, arranged where I’d be working and how my rotations would look. The whole process was so efficient, and Erin was so brilliant, I can't speak highly enough of her.”

When ACA members come off contract, they have access to assistance from the ACA Transition Player Development Manager, education grants, financial health checks and planning, networking opportunities, and paid work placements, which Edwards utilised last year following his retirement.

Edwards says the placement at AMP was crucial in helping him “narrow down” what he wanted to do. He realised he was interested in the “whole picture of money” instead of a specific area like sales, investment, product, growth and strategy.

“I think the one that I’m going to go into now is financial advice,” says Edwards. “I’d rather help people with that. Especially living in Sydney, as I do now, we’re stretched too thin, so trying to help people overcome the challenges and the puzzle of money is what I want to do.”

It has provided Edwards with a sense of professional clarity, charting a clear path for his post-cricket career.

“Without the placement, I wouldn’t have been able to come to that realisation,” says Edwards. “I’d be guessing and stabbing in the dark at different jobs that I wasn't entirely sure about.”

After graduating, Edwards will complete a financial advice bridging course and a professional year shadowing an advisor. Edwards will then be required to pass the advisor exam to become qualified. “I kind of see it as two years of graft for a lifetime of stability and being in a job that I want to do,” says Edwards.

It is a long way from the SCG and Lord’s, but Edwards says there are transferable skills, and he is leaning on in-game intangibles to thrive in finance.

“I’ve got some lingering competitiveness from being competitive every day in the nets and whatnot. That definitely helped me,” says Edwards. “More competitiveness of myself and trying to learn as much as I could as quickly as possible, and trying to learn everything about what people do and what the product is and how it all works.”

Edwards also stressed the currency cricketers have in the business world, particularly when it comes to sparking the curiosity of potential employers and colleagues.

“I would recommend doing it as quickly as you can,” says Edwards. “For me, I was already out of cricket when I did it and had lost a little bit of relevance, but people actually are interested in what you do and want to talk about cricket and want to know your story.”

Current Players and ACA Members in transition interested in accessing the Work Placement Program should contact their PDM or the ACA’s Transition PDM Mark Gregory for more information.