News

I might sound like a broken record at times, but the football world should stop momentarily and salute an umpiring champion who equaled a record this week and should break the record in round 16.  Hayden Kennedy retired at the conclusion of the 2011 season with 495 AFL games including 39 finals and 5 grand finals in the bank.  Hayden, at the time decided that he couldn’t continue for another season because in his words, “I am done.”  Hayden umpired his first AFL game in 1988 and hung up the whistle 23 year later in what was a truely remarkable and stellar career.  We walked away at the time wondering who would ever get near the record, don’t worry about breaking it!  On Sunday, Shane McInerney walked onto Marvel Stadium for the St Kilda v Richmond match following a five week layoff with injury and a game in the VFL, to equal that amazing record.  Just for the record Shane umpired his first senior AFL match in 1994 and some 24 years later, is on the precipice of breaking Hayden’s remarkable record. Shane has umpired 495 games including 26 finals and 2 grand finals.  We await this weekend……….

Another senior field umpire has succumbed to injury.  Serious questions now need to be asked about the four into three field umpire trial over the bye rounds and the potential future of the system.  The system was designed to have four appointed umpires interchange during games to reduce workload and look to using those more senior umpires in two matches over a weekend. The three senior umpires all sustained injuries in matches and couldn’t complete the match.  The latest, Shaun Ryan came off the back of two games the previous week and has appeared to sustain stress fractures in his foot.  He was forced out of Friday nights clash between Sydney and Hawthorn at half time.