Junior Umpires mixed it with the best at Queensland’s Umpire Season Launch and Education Day at the weekend, with four former juniors turned AFL Umpires returning as mentors.
More than 120 Umpires took part from across the state, from Umpire4Fun, Youth to Community and High-Performance match officials.
Four former Queensland Umpires who are now on the AFL list joined in on the day, taking the group through their paces on and off the field, including Goal Umpire Matthew Bridges and Boundary Umpires Adam Reardon, Nick Swanson, and Chris Delany.
“It’s good seeing the kids and thinking this used to be me and just how motivated they are just to learn and experience it they’re just so passionate about it. Being so young already it’s so impressive,” Delany said.
Umpiring Development Lead – QLD Sam Bridges said it was great to see a mix of experience there and hoped it encouraged more people to consider joining the Green Team.
“The day was all about bringing umpires together across the whole of South East Queensland and a few umpires from Cairns to learn a little bit more about umpiring, make some new friendships, build some new bonds with other people and hopefully take what they learn and bring that across into the weekend,” he said.
“Without umpires it makes it really difficult to run a game and that pressure falls on the volunteers and club people so the more umpires we can get involved in doing games on a weekend the better it is going to be for the environment of the game and it’s actually going to allow us to grow the game here in Queensland.”
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