Twenty-seven year old Cameron Dore was the final umpire offered an AFL contract for 2019. Cameron is the son of retired field umpire Gavin Dore, a veteran of 302 AFL games between 1986 and 2004 including 17 finals and the 1996 AFL Grand Final between Sydney and North Melbourne. Cameron has had a very different journey into umpiring however. He played football at Vermont Football Club and was offered a pathway into umpiring at the VFL when he decided to umpire in the VAFA one year before heading overseas in 2015. So successful was his stint, Cameron was fast tracked into the VFL. He has spent the last two years in the Advanced Development Program run by Adam Davis and Stuart Wenn. Cameron was the emergency field umpire in the last two VFL grand finals and was a rookie field umpire on the AFL panel in 2018.
Nick Swanson from Queensland who was trialing for a spot on the boundary panel in 2018 finally got his wish, albeit a year late. Nick has umpired in Queensland on the NEAFL Panel for the past three seasons. Joshua Furman from Victoria was the last addition to the boundary umpire panel. Josh umpired the 2018 VFL grand final and was ranked number one in Victoria. Josh started his umpiring with the Southern Umpires. He has been on the VFL list for 4 years.
A number of field umpire rookies will come onto the list for the first time. Nathan Toner and Paul Rebeschini from Victoria replace John Howorth and Cameron Dore who become listed umpires. Aaron Langdon returns to the list from NSW/ACT replacing Cameron Barr. In Perth, Daniel Johanson replaces Justin Power who becomes a listed umpire.
There are no changes to the goal umpire panel.
We will provide more details on each of the newly listed umpires over the coming weeks.