NETBALL OPERATIONS

13&U

Coach - Carol Gregorovich

Team Manager – Jade Heinrich

15&U

Coach - Donna Wilson

17&U

Coach - David O’Hare

Team Manager – Mandy Gesler

Open

Coach - Lani Mannays

Team Manager – Marissa Haynes

Looking forward to 2023:

Participation Growth

One of the most pleasing aspects of 2022 was the growth of our 17&U competitions and clubs, some fielding teams in the age group for the first time and reaping the benefits of having a feeder team for their open teams. 2023 will see many players from that age group graduate into Open netball which is very exciting for the clubs involved. In the lead up to the 2023 season, we will be working with clubs on strategies to increase participation numbers in both junior and open competitions. The aspiration will be for all clubs to field a 17&U team in 2023. This is seen as a vital step in the ongoing sustainability of clubs and them having the ability of fielding four open grade teams well into the future.

Umpire Development

2022 was a challenging time across the state for both Football Netball Leagues and Netball Associations in the umpiring department. Umpiring numbers had diminished from 2019 levels. A huge thank you goes out to our panel umpires for their commitment to their Outer East along with the many club umpires that stood up in the place of panel umpires when we had shortages throughout the season.

Umpiring has been identified as one of our key challenges in 2023. The need to attract more umpires into our ranks and provide them with the training, education and opportunity to continue along on their umpiring pathway.

We also will be looking at providing opportunities for clubs to have their umpires badged or progress their accreditation thru the Netball Victoria umpiring pathway. Like players and coaches, the better equipped our umpires are, the better our competition will be.

Coaching Development

Like umpiring, coaching is another area that needs increased attention in 2023. In our competition and across numerous other competitions there are currently more coaching positions on offer than there are coaching applicants looking. This would indicate that there is a strong need to assist clubs in nurturing and developing their own coaches from within. We recently hosted a Netball Victoria Face to Face Development Level coaching course, and we will be looking to host another in February of 2023 along with a Level 3 Intermediate course to assist clubs in providing more opportunities to advance their coaches thru the pathway.

Association Championships

Outer East FN is committed to being part of the 2023 Netball Victoria Association Championships and will compete in 13&U, 15&U, 17&U and Open competitions. For our athletes the Association Championships plays an important part of the Netball Victoria Talent Identification program. In closing, in my first year in the job, I would like to take the opportunity to thank my colleagues at Outer East FN for their support. I would also like to thank all the affiliate clubs, committees, players, parents and officials for making our competition what it is and I looking forward to continue building even stronger relationships in to 2023 to make our competition even better.

The Outer East Football Umpiring team enjoyed a successful season on and off the field in 2022. The season began officially with my appointment as the new Head of Umpiring commencing on November 1st, 2021. By Christmas, the group had trained across four Sundays at four different venues to suit the geographical challenges of the group, held 8 online weekly coaching sessions called the ‘weekly whistle’ at 7pm on Wednesday evenings and the coaching panel had all been appointed. In addition to this, planning for the inaugural Darwin Development Camp was all complete, ready to go in early January.

Throughout early January, 6 developing umpires attended the inaugural Darwin Development Camp officiating games in the Northern Territory Football League season, participating in specific umpire skills sessions, physical training sessions, goal setting for 2022, life development experiences and visiting the various tourist attractions. One of the umpires mentioned “The past 8 days I have learnt more about umpiring and myself than I have in my past 5 years as an umpire”. The group was complimented by current AFL Field Umpire Nick Brown, AFLUA life member Don Cooke, former NTFL umpiring manager Sam Cunningham and the 4 various NTFL coaches who provided specialist coaching and mentoring throughout. This camp also attracted national social media attention on the AFL and UmpireAFL Facebook and Instagram pages.

In the first week of February the group started training on Monday nights at Mt Lilydale Mercy College in blistering heat with around 50 people attending. The vibe was great, and the application and dedication could be clearly seen, full of enthusiasm with a new coaching team. The new Officials HQ platform education session and accreditation day wrapped the month up along with many umpires participating in Eastern Ranges Football Club practice matches across the month and OEFN club practice matches.

Throughout March, further refinement of Officials HQ become a hurdle however this didn’t stop the three clear focuses for our group being educated throughout. The goal umpires were to focus on movement and positioning under flight and signally scores at the closest point on the score line to prevent holding play up for quick kick ins. Boundary umpires focused on the speed in which they can throw the ball in and aiming for 18m in length with plenty of height. The field umpires to focus on dangerous play incidents such as dangerous tackles and holding the whistle for ball ups to allow play to flow and penalising players who dive or drag the ball in and do not knock the ball clear in an attempt to shorten quarters with less stoppages and promote a more free flowing game. All of these key points would be educated via an online learning platform on the YRUA website in which vision from the OEFN would be edited to highlight these examples. For field umpires, this was a weekly occurrence, and the platform also provided the opportunity for umpires to ask questions about specific examples shown and for the group to see the questions.

In addition to this, our recruitment was booming and our target of 20 new umpires was exceeded before the start of the season after we held a recruitment day in conjunction with the OEFN junior interleague trial day which attracted 14 young umpires in addition their parents who also became valued members of the group.

In April the season was to begin and so too was our training schedule with juniors and seniors training on Monday nights at Mt Evelyn and on Wednesday nights, the umpires had the choice of an Officer training group or Emerald training group.

The first Wednesday of each month we enjoyed a meal supplied by the Emerald Football Club and a group training session which included special guest speakers throughout year such as current AFL Umpires Ian Burrows and Michael Craig, Victorian Umpiring development manager Andrew Talbot, State Umpiring academy manager Craig Herman and also our past OEFN umpires who are now current VFL development squad umpires who all came to run training and discuss their experiences across the season.

The start of the season kicked off quickly and more umpires started coming in after the AFL releasing the country is 6,000 umpires short, we experienced more umpires joining and the word spread of the quality training we where providing and umpires from neighbouring leagues started joining. By round 1, we had more umpires available than what clubs had requested and therefore, many of the clubs agreed to pay extra for umpires they had not requested if we could fill those appointments. All appointments for field, boundary and goal umpires were appointed in round 1. A great achievement for the league.

The new ISC uniforms had then arrived, and the roll out had begun, by seasons end, every umpire was wearing the new tops and socks with stocks to be replenished in late September 2022, ready for the 2023 season which will see all umpires fully attired with both on field and off field attire.

In May, umpires Alex Tomada, Sophie Mastaing, Daniel Molino, Dylan Priestley, Georgia Priestley, Francis Nickell, Harrison Pinney, Jack Kennedy and Connor Ahmed all attended the U15 state championships in Shepparton which really showed how the reinstatement of our pathway system in the Eastern ranges Umpire academy was already a huge success with many members having valued experiences.

From the carnival, goal umpires Alex Tomada and Jack Kennedy were identified as umpires under consideration for the 2023 VFL development squad in which Alex Tomada has been offered a contract for 2023, the first graduate from OEFN to the VFL development list in a number of years. There have been 7 other umpires identified for 2024. May 21st also marked the first full female umpiring panel in the OEFN in the Emerald v Belgrave match. To mark the occasion, Head of Umpiring for the AFL Dan Richardson attended to greet all umpires and watch the game along with Dr Mandy Ruddock Hudson (former professional swimmer) and Brad McEwan who spoke at a post-game function to the large 100+ crowd about the importance of female sport and the experiences they have had within that field. The following week they conducted a mental health seminar for the junior umpires and worked on strategies to deal with difficult situations around crowds, parents and coaches along with developing skills in how to deal with emotions after a confrontation on field or off-field. In May we also had 6 umpires officiate at Half Time of an AFL game and enjoy a match day experience with the AFL umpiring team including walking onto the field and warming up with the AFL umpires. In May we were also met with the challenge of allocating umpires to the South division of the Vets competition. Luckily umpires from the Gippsland Umpire Association and South Gippsland Umpires Association assisted us in filling these appointments, often as a 1 umpire system.

In June Umpire availability began to thin out and some outstanding contributions from select individuals who officiated 2 games in a row to fill appointments. Some making their senior football debuts. AFL Umpire Nick Brown officiated a junior match with Harrison Siddall at Upwey and AFL boundary umpire Ian Burrows had been out to Monbulk to observe our 3 most aspiring boundary umpires.

It also marked the debut of 14-year-old Max Worthy officiating a Premier Reserves grade match. He would go on to umpire the U17 Grand Final and be the emergency for the U19 Grand Final.

In July we raised awareness for MND with the amazing story of new Goal Umpire Matt Stickland and this was also recognised with all goal umpires wearing MND beanies in the ‘sockit2MND’ round. Recruits continued to flow in and in this month, we attracted another 6 junior umpires who started umpiring u9 and u10 football with mentors.

August started our finals campaigns in women’s, vets and junior competitions. Our focus again aligned to dangerous play incidents, promoting a free-flowing game and for our group to act with integrity and professionalism. This flowed throughout September when we were awarded our umpires of the year awards to field umpire – Leigh Walters, Boundary Umpire – Dylan Priestley and Goal Umpire - Alex Tomada.

At seasons end we have had nearly 170 umpires officiate 3 games and 152 umpires complete the season, 68 of those are new to the OEFN and nearly 50 of those are brand new to umpiring including 11 females which we now have 18 females officiating in our group compared to 7 in 2021. 54 umpires are below the age of 18 and 113 of the 152 total umpires that completed the season are 24 years old or younger. This is a great resemblance of the youth and next generation of our group coming through and our ability to recruit within this age demographic throughout 2022. On percentages of group size, we have recruited the most on record of any umpiring group on AFL Victoria records and the challenge ahead is to retain these umpires and continue to replenish our numbers with new talent young and old.

In summary I would like to acknowledge the OEFN umpiring coaching panel and staff. Don Cooper, Nelson Tucker, Graham Bergroth, Ken Taylor, Sophie Mastaing, Warwick Marsh and our Junior appointments manager Emily Jose and the valued contribution of Aaron Gillard in administration support. Their support is critical in providing an engaging and motivating experience for all umpires.

I would also like to acknowledge the Outer East Football Netball Staff who were wonderful to work with and provided great support. Special acknowledgement to CEO, Aaron Bailey; who led the team brilliantly through adversity and rewarding times. I would like to thank the OEFN board members and their continuous support for the umpiring program and positive feedback.

Umpiring is a key stakeholder in servicing the league and the clubs. I have thoroughly enjoyed contributing in a positive manner to this service and football in the region and I am excited for the future of umpiring in OEFN with 74% of the total umpires 24 years old and younger and the reestablishment of the pathway system.