Evergreen field umpire, Shaun Ryan umpired his 250th AFL day game up on the Gold Coast last weekend. Shaun, who is just loving his involvement back in the AFL, ran around with two young guns, David Harris and Brent Wallace who were in awe of his performance. “Umpiring with Shaun is a great experience, he is so composed out there on the ground, I have learned so much,” reflected David when we caught up with Shaun during a small celebration after the game. Shaun now sits 30th in order of all time number of games umpired by a field umpire. However when it comes to number of finals he sits equal 12th (25) with two other current field umpires, Matt Stevic and Shane Mc Inernery, but equal 5th of all time when you include his 5 grand finals.
Mark Thomson (328 games) is now only 2 games behind Herbert Kent (330) who sits in second place on the all time boundary umpires games tally. John Morris (318) has moved into fifth all time now only two games behind the great Murray Williams (320).
Congratulations to Sean Burton who has replaced Darren Wilson as the next boundary umpire in SA. Sean was previously listed for 12 months in 2012 umpiring 11 AFL games. Since 2013 Sean has continually put himself to the forefront of selectors and has been rewarded for his persistence.
Chris Roberts and Graham Bergroth both returned to senior AFL boundary appointments last weekend and both performed very well. I am sure they will both be working very hard to maintain their places on the list for the remainder of the season. With both of these boys back, boundary umpire coach, Simon Leigh was looking to have a full list to choose from in Rd 16 for the first time all season until Tim Lougoon broke down with a hamstring injury. Simon isn’t sure if he has walked under a ladder but some of his boundary boys are racking up the additional games.
Jonathan Creasey turned 40 last week and had a calf twinge that kept him out for a week. You will often hear people refer to calf injuries as an “old timers” injury. I’m sure Jonathan will be back to add to his 301 AFL games.
Ray Chamberlain was a late withdrawal from the Western Bulldogs v Richmond clash on Saturday night with a niggling Achilles injury. Ray was replaced by Sam Hay for his third match in 2 weeks.
Scott Jeffery who was awarded AFL life membership earlier this season, walks out onto the ground this coming weekend in his 300th AFL appearance. We will bring you his story next week.
You can only imagine the great learning done by our young up and coming umpires at the under 16 National Carnival on the Gold Coast last week. Their coaches had a collective tally of 683 AFL games between them. Stuart Wenn (341-field) Darren Wilson (405-boundary) and David Flegg (337-goal). I’m not sure it gets better than that.
Our Fiona McBurney Match Day participant this week, Maddie braved the wet conditions in Perth and had a wonderful day working as a match-day trainer. See the photos from her day on our website.