News

Life member of the AFLUA, Colin Hood goal umpired 311 AFL games in a career that spanned 21 years.

What an amazing first week of finals football we had the pleasure of witnessing.  Teams evenly matched following what was a controversial bye weekend, because they came into the weekend fixtures as fit as they could possibly be.  We believed going into the bye week the only stakeholder that would be happy were the umpires.  “We don’t get the luxury afforded the teams with a week off during the season and while we don’t take the bumps and the big hits we do run further in games than the best mid-fielders in the competition, and we are certainly older,” said an insider today.

Libby performs in the All Stars match

There are 6 running umpires appointed to their first finals appearance after what the umpiring department said was an extremely harrowing selection meeting.  Three other umpires debut in finals as emergencies.

The power base continues to grow in stature.  Four of the eight listed AFL umpires from NSW/ACT have been appointed to the first week of AFL finals.  If we discount Dale Puren who didn’t get onto the field this year due to illness and injury and we have a 57% hit rate in that market place. 

One of the many endearing qualities of our most recent milestone recipient, Nick Wade is that he knows how to not take himself too seriously. “With the retirement of John Morris, I am now officially the oldest bloke on the list and very happy to say so and take over that mantle,” exclaimed Nick with a laugh. I’m not sure that there would be too many other people on the list wanting bragging rights about that status!

At the end of every season there is reason to celebrate many wonderful milestones, newly appointed finals umpires and umpires who step up to do grand finals.  We should never lose sight of those whose careers come to an end.  Four such careers have ended with the final round of the season.  All four men have had a huge impact on the culture and each leave a legacy they should be proud off.

In this day and age of statistics and on the eve of another finals series it might be studious to look at what history tells us about umpire selection and finals.

Give a young girl or boy the opportunity to have a kick on the MCG and they will gravitate to it like bees to a honeypot.  Add a few umpires who are after all, frustrated footballers, an ex AFL player as the umpire and 22 Down Syndrome kids and their siblings and you have a cocktail for mayhem.  That’s exactly what transpired for 30 minutes prior to the Hawthorn v Collingwood game on Sunday, and you will never wipe the smiles off their faces.