By Sophie Hammill
This weekend, the larger football community will pay tribute and say thanks to the men and women in white during the AFL’s Community Umpiring Round.
With the AFL officially establishing the round in 2014, football leagues across the country will celebrate and recognize the contribution thousands of umpires make every weekend to our great game.
In celebration of Community Umpiring Round, WRFL umpires had a great opportunity during the week to be coached by some of the AFL’s best boundary, goal and field umpires.
Five AFL umpires attended a WRFL umpires training session at Scovell Reserve, to teach the young umpires a few strategies and skills as a means to further educated these aspiring umpires.
AFL field umpires Nick Foot and Brent Wallace, boundary umpires Marantelli and Matthew Tomkins and goal umpire Steven Piperno also stayed after training for a Q&A session where the WRFL umpires were encouraged to ask any pressing questions.
WRFL Director of Umpiring Mark Westgarth said that it was a real honour to have a group of AFL umpires come down to training and give back to grassroots football.
“It gives the WRFL umpires a chance to ask these professionals questions regarding umpiring that they may never have had answered.
“It’s definitely a great opportunity for the young kids to see what it takes to become an umpire.”
It is evident that these young umpires are determined to become the best umpires possible, training three nights a week as well as adjudicating matches on the weekend.
With just under 300 men and women adjudicating across the league, these young umpires have shown great dedication towards becoming the best possible umpires.
Along with the five AFL umpires coming to the WRFL training session, in celebration of the Community Umpiring Round, five other WRFL umpires were picked to attend an education and training session on Tuesday May 12.
Hosted by AFL umpire coaches at IKON Park, the WRFL’s Tom Harrison, Dean McGowan, Sean Weise, Jordan Wiltshire and Jarrod Walson learnt from some of the best in the business which will no doubt assist with their development and furthering their umpiring career.
Community Umpiring Round is a great opportunity for not only these umpires to learn and to develop new skills by professional AFL umpires, but it also recognizes all our umpires and allows the rest of the football community to show our appreciation for the great work they do.
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Last Modified on 13/05/2015 14:36