Well done to all umpires who ran interleague games last week.
Congratulations to former sfnl umpire Kaitlin Barr who has been appointed to the NAB Girls Grand Final at Icon Park.
Last week at Endeavour Hills the talk in the umpires room turned interesting with one of our boundaries calling one of our goalies grandpa. He was very quickly told that while older it just means he is more experienced.
At half time of the reserves one of our senior boundaries was spotted eating chips (for lunch apparently). This isn’t exactly the lunch of champions but it seemed to work for them.
At training during the week, the goal umpires made use of the facilities at RSEA park and did a session on reporting. During this time the lights seemed to keep flickering. It was soon discovered that one Matt H seemed to be having fun playing with the light switch. He was soon warned if he didn’t stop he may not enjoy the travel time for his next match.
Jack (who shares his name with a famous former Herald-Sun sporting editor), was recruited from Southern Umpires at the end of 2017. He commenced umpiring with the Frankston Juniors in 2014 and umpired the Under 17 Grand Final the following year. He then moved to Southern Umpires and last year umpired the International Cup final on the hallowed MCG turf. Jack is landscape gardening apprentice. He is a keen student of umpiring and learns by watching others. Last year he learnt that you need to clear a path when backing back from a ball-up – his umpiring partner in a match backed straight into a ruckman and both of them were knocked out! He joined the SFNL last year after Tane Abbott talked him into it when they umpired an interleague game at Woori Yallock in 2017.