LAST week I went to the Essendon v Carlton game at the MCG to watch my brother-in-law. It was his final game after 341 matches at the elite AFL level. He’s an incredible athlete and although he’s well over 40, he’s one of the fittest guys you’ll ever meet.
When anyone spends any length of time out of the game they love and are so passionate about because they are injured they can become dispirited and disillusioned. The game they have worked so hard to be a part of can seem so far away. Negative thoughts about am I good enough, can I overcome this injury invade your everyday life, whereas when you are upbeat and getting selected each week these thoughts never enter your head.
If you sit back and review the umpiring career of Chris Kamolins who umpired his 150th AFL game on Friday night between Hawthorn and Collingwood it has worked in the opposite direction to what the current thinking is.
AFL umpires will meet some of the top whistle blowers in American sport on an end-of-season trip to New York.
Shane McInerney heralded in his 400th game on Saturday with a panel of significant experience. Between the nine officiating umpires there was a total of 1873 games of AFL football including 131 finals and 19 grand finals. Boundary umpire Drew Kowalski was the least experienced with 82 games under his belt.
The ground announcer’s voice boomed across the MCG on Saturday night as the umpires entered the arena “………and congratulations to field umpire Shane McInerney on umpiring his 400th AFL game.” The scoreboard cameras had focused on him, it was Shane’s moment in the sun where the broader footballing public could recognise a great feat, even grudgingly, by an umpire. There was barely a ripple of applause or even a derisive comment from a frustrated supporter sitting nearby.
Run your eye down the list of boundary umpires that front up week after week, do their job and go home you’d struggle to name most of them. They are the unheralded men of footy. They have to run harder, faster and further than anyone else who takes the field in any footy game but only get noticed when the commentators focus on a short throw-in rather than the ruckmen standing 50 metres away from them.
Field umpire Andrew Mitchell (Mitch) walked onto Blundstone Arena on Saturday quietly confident that he could handle whatever the game threw at him. “I had an eight year apprenticeship in the VFL with almost 150 senior games of experience. Five years ago it wasn’t kick, mark, play on as much as it is today. You had to learn how to manage players too.” reflected Andrew on the eve of his 50th AFL game.
Shaun Ryan has not thumped a football into the turf since the last quarter of the 2011 grand final, and his back feels all the better for it.