Lopes, who 
received the 2012 Joanne Cox Medal, umpires senior football in the Northern Football League and is being touted as the first female AFL field umpire.
Below is the article on her which featured in the Sport Confidential section (p.51) of the February 11 copy of the Herald Sun.
Take note of the name Lucinda Lopes – she is well on the way to becoming the first women field umpire in the AFL.
The 19-year-old from Plenty has been umpiring senior matches in the Northern Football League for two years and last week smashed a benchmark test at the AFL-supported Female Umpires Academy.
Neville Nash, who is umpire development manager at AFL Victoria, rates Lopes as an outstanding prospect.
He said she shattered the 2km time-trial benchmark for VFL field umpires of 6min 55 sec, clocking 6:34 at a pre-season training camp.
Nash rated her highly for what seems an essential skill for any umpire these days: bouncing the ball.
“She’s small but she can bounce the ball as well as male umpires,” he said.
When we suggested to Lopes she could be a pioneer like goal umpire Chelsea Roffey in becoming the first woman AFL field umpire, she said there was a long way to go. But she left no doubt that was her ambition.
Lopes has been umpiring since she was 10, starting with Auskick and junior games before graduating to senior ranks in the Northern Football League.
She hopes to graduate to the VFL next season.
Asked about umpiring men, many of whom have played AFL footy, she said: “I don’t think about it much otherwise I’d get nervous.”
The second year Health Science student at LaTrobe University said she had not been confronted by anything more than an occasional bit of backchat, nothing a 50m penalty didn’t fix.
Nash said the female academy fast-tracked select field umpires to the VFL.
