Umpires

David Hannan

Umpires Manager

After a disappointing 2020 season we had high hopes for an entire 2021 season.

It all started well with many new umpires joining the team which offset to some degree the significant loss of experienced umpires who had moved on for a variety of reasons.

Pre-season was well attended with our main aim of trying to get some of the new umpires up to speed quickly by providing at training coaching and then practice matches. This proved very successful with many taking to round 1 without an on-field mentor. We felt that this was in many cases due to the fact a majority of the new umpires were still playing or had played in our League.

With more games to umpire we knew there would be challenges however we were really proud of the way the new umpires and in fact all umpires performed with many going into much higher grades than when they had last umpired back in 2019.

The coaching staff of the umpires worked hard at training and on game day to provide advice and support to as many umpires each week as possible. A big thank you to all of the coaches and mentors who participated and gave support to others. Koonung Reserve and Thursday nights to Lynden Park was a success and we thank particularly Camberwell Sharks for allocating time on Thursday nights for the group to train. We’d also like to thanks Park Orchards and St Marys for allowing us to run training at their satellite venue grounds.

Whilst we were sad that the season did end without the finals being played we thought that overall the umpires performed really well during the season and whilst we were not able to celebrate grand final day we did have an on-line presentation night which was a huge success.