Some of the best umpires from Melbourne’s north-west will step up to umpire both the Victorian Football League and NAB League competitions.
AFL Victoria announced that 46 umpires from their Community Umpire Talent Academy in Victoria had graduated and promoted to officiate at Victorian state league level in 2023, across both male and female competitions.
The crop includes four females – one each in the field and boundary groups, and two goal umpires.
After the first full season of community football since 2019, the academy provided 100 umpires the opportunity to officiate the best under-15 boys and girls from country Victoria in the V/Line Cup in September, where state league umpire coaches from all three disciplines – field, boundary and goal – attended to scout out the next batch of state league umpires.
From there, the graduates were selected for the next step in their careers and were given the news late last year.
Fourteen umpire clubs in total are represented with an even split of seven each from the metropolitan and country regions.
Several umpires were selected from the Essendon District, Western Region and Northern football leagues.
There were also umpires selected from the Ballarat and Bendigo football leagues.
The boundary umpires who were promoted were, Shaylee Anderson and Michael Court, both from the Bendigo league, Lachlan Bezzina, who is from the EDFL, Northern Football’s Luke Gonis, Ballarat Umpires’ Oliver Pearce and Brock Reid and WRFL’s Angus Cameron and Lachlan Smith.
Field umpires Liam Dye and Jenna Green (both EDFL), Northern Football League’s Ned Walsh and the WRFL’s Shannon Van Boven have been promoted.
On the goal umpire side of things, the EDFL’s Issa Mikhael, NFL’s Jackson Mansell and WRFL’s Bradley Heffernan-Benfield have graduated.
AFL Victoria is encouraging anyone interested in umpiring to get involved.
Details: play.afl/umpire.
Tara Murray
