Amongst the jostling for ladder positions, player retirement announcements, and early trade speculation, the final round of the AFL season saw a historic umpiring milestone achieved.
After 128 years of Aussie rules football without a female boundary umpire, the AFL decided to break this streak with a historic treble debut.
Rookie listed boundary umpires Kaitlin Barr, Melissa Sambrooks, and Greta Miller had been chosen as the history-makers.
News of their AFL debuts was broken to the trio together.
Having all been assigned to officiate in the AFLW season opener between Carlton and Collingwood at Ikon Park, their usual post-game routine was interrupted by Laura Kane.
The AFL’s Executive General Manager of Football revealed to the trio in front of coaches, colleagues and friends that they would be making their AFL debut the following week.
Greta Miller remembered her excitement upon hearing the news.
“I couldn’t sleep after that.
“I just thought wow, this is crazy. It takes a lot to sink in. I don’t think it sunk in until days later.”
Miller has largely led the charge for female boundary umpires, having been the first female VFL boundary umpire and the first to umpire a State League Final.
Miller has shared much of her senior umpiring journey with her partner on debut, Melissa Sambrooks.
“Once I got to the VFL, I actually think it was just me and Mel. We were the only girls.”
Sambrooks’ picked up umpiring as a twelve-year-old in 2010 with the now-defunct Golden Rivers League.
She admitted that, like many who take up umpiring, she was originally in it for the money.
“[I] followed my sister into it for the money so I could pay for more dance lessons and keep my fitness up a bit, because I thought I was going to be an Olympic swimmer or classical ballerina.”
Having persisted with boundary umpiring, by the end of her schooling in 2016 she earned nomination to join Miller on the VFL list.
Despite the promotion to the AFL rookie boundary list at the start of this year, Sambrooks says that an AFL game was never even on the radar.
“We didn’t expect to get the call up this year even when we were on the rookie list.
“We assume that is was more like a training year to see how much we could improve and that the opportunities would come in a future season.”
For a long time, the physicality of boundary umpiring was thought to have made it more difficult for women to break into, when in comparison to the other disciplines.
AFL boundary umpires routinely cover up to 20km in a game and are required to—under fatigue—throw the ball in eighteen meters whilst achieving maximum height.
Yet, with personalised training programmes and under the avuncular watch of former AFL boundary umpire-turned-coach Shane Tiele, the three made rapid advances in their conditioning throughout the year.
Additionally, they were permitted to come in from the boundary to make their throws. Each umpire was allowed to advance inwards from the white line by the distance that their average throw was below the required 18 meters.
The reputation of the AFLW as an accelerator development pathway for female umpires has been bolstered by the trio’s debut, each of them having found success in the women’s league.
Sambrooks umpired the inaugural AFL game back in 2017 and earned the league’s Umpiring Rising Star at the 2023 W Awards.
Meanwhile Miller umpired the 2023 AFLW grand final and Barr was selected the following year.
The clash between down-on-their-luck traditional rivals Essendon and Carlton at the MCG was chosen for Miller and Sambrooks’ debut.
Understandably, the nerves were building before the match, but Sambrooks says that she kept a cool head by “trying to remind myself that it is just in some ways like any other game I’ve done… just a little bit more difficult.”
“If you weren’t nervous it’d be worrying, because you do care so much about it and you want to do a good job.”
Kaitlin Barr’s debut came just days later when she ran the white line in the North Melbourne vs Adelaide game in Docklands.
Barr described the euphoria she felt post-game while celebrating with family and friends.
“I was so emotional after the game… Seeing all of my friends and family there… seeing them all there supporting me and being genuinely happy and excited, that was amazing.
“We went into the rooms post-game and I was quite emotional… it kind of dawned on me that we’d done it.
“It was amazing, I’m still on a high after it.
“I’m very proud and very grateful for the opportunity to go out there.”
Barr hopes that the presence of Sambrooks, Miller, and herself will help to encourage young girls who might not otherwise get into umpiring.
“I’m a big believer in ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ and how much visibility does matter”
“It’s something that I think about, especially as a teacher. My kids at school were so excited for [the] weekend.”
Miller mirrored Barr’s sentiment, acknowledging her ascension to higher ranks had come with the responsibility of being a role model for aspiring female umpires.
“When I started I don’t think that was something I thought about; being an inspiration for the next group of girls.
“Now that we’ve reached the higher ranks, I think it’s a big deal that we’re showing the next group of girls that this is possible.”
Article by Jackson Kerr