The NFNL and the wider football community will this week acknowledge the terrific work undertaken by our umpires as part of the AFL’s Community Umpiring Round.
The initiative to promote, recruit and recognise the efforts of umpires goes a long way to retaining umpires in community football and offer a pathway for those umpires who wish to pursue a career moving forward.
The NFNL is fortunate to have built a strong and diverse umpiring group both in the terms of quality and depth.
This has not been achieved through good fortune. The tireless efforts of Director of Umpiring Martin Ellis and his team for recruiting and nurturing our umpiring group is to be applauded.
This is supported by the Northern Umpires Association who is responsible for creating a warm and welcoming environment to ensure that all NFNL umpires enjoy their time in the NFNL.
Throughout Community Umpiring Week, AFL umpires will attend training at all community umpiring groups providing coaching and training support.
On Tuesday night AFL umpires Matthew Nicholls, Jacob Mollison (field), James Scully, Matthew Tomkins (boundary) and Steve Piperno (goal) attended NFNL training.
In addition, six lucky NFNL career umpires will attend an official AFL training and coaching session at IKON Park this week.
This is a great opportunity for those umpires to get an insight into how the AFL operate at the top level.
The NFNL will also be adopting our own initiative to Community Umpiring Week, with all coaches and captains to be present at the toss of the coin prior to each match, shaking hands with all officiating umpires.
Anyone interested into getting into umpire should contact enquiries@nfnl.org.au.
