How long is a piece of string? Eleven 50 metre penalties is a record in a game of AFL football said the statisticians who have been measuring everything in football forensically for the past few years. Dane Rampe from the Sydney Swans probably summed it up best when he was caught on field umpire, Nick Foot’s microphone wanting to know if he’d also had a coffee with “Clarko”, after Nick awarded Dane’s opponent a free kick for being held in the game against Carlton. Who said banter was dead?
Jacob Mollison was never so glad of a second medical opinion after finding himself in a moon boot after the Sydney game on Friday night. Jake was inadvertently stepped on by a player. The first opinion was a broken foot and out for 4-8 weeks. The second, by the Carlton doctor, bruising – should be ok next week.
It was good to see veteran field umpire, Troy Pannell and his side kick for the past month, Andrew Stephens out of rehab and back umpiring in the VFL on Saturday. Both men got through and should be available for AFL selection in the coming weeks.
Still no luck however for another veteran, Scott Jeffery who continues to build his base back to full fitness. Scott has endured a very tough year with injury and like his counterpart Luke Farmer in WA has not been able to get onto the park to umpire. They both continue to work and rehab as the true professionals they are.
Boundary umpire, Aaron Deckys moves into equal 5th position all time with Murray Williams on 320 games. Aaron, like Murray is an evergreen.
Looking at our groups as they currently stand, eight percent of the group have umpired more than 300 AFL games. Eight field umpires (24%) have accumulated over 300 AFL games each, Shane McInerney (474 games/27 finals/2 grand finals), Brett Rosebury (382/40/7), Justin Schmitt (355/15/0) Matt Stevic (340/33/5), Simon Meredith (326/28/5), Scott Jeffery (324/13/1), Matt Nicholls (319/21/2) and Dean Margetts (309/11/0).
Our boundary umpires only have two umpires (4.6%) over the 300 game tally. Mark Thomson (368/31/5) and Aaron Deckys (320/6/0). The next closest is Adam Coote on 289 games.
There are no current goal umpires with more than 300 games experience. Chris Appleton heads the current list with 258 games, Daniel Wilson (229) and Chelsea Roffey (228)
Dean Margetts is certainly adding up the frequent flyers with his appointments the past five weeks seeing him fly east every weekend.
Look for our video of our FM MDE participant this weekend from Adelaide, Joseph Russell. Joseph and his family had a great evening at the Adelaide Oval supported by Shane and Sandra Harris.