THE Western Region Football League has appointed a new umpires director for next season as the league aims to shore up its record number of umpires.
Former AFL field umpire Mark Westgarth will take the role for a three-year term, with the aim of continuing to increase umpire numbers and an extra focus on retention and training.
The league has more than 300 umpires involved on weekend match days, a figure boosted by a recent increase in junior females taking up the whistle for the first time.
WRFL chief executive Bob Tregear said the appointment was a proactive step. “Mark’s background in both umpiring and the western suburbs makes him a perfect fit for the role.
“He has already had a great impact with our umpiring academy at MacKillop College, and through his teaching role at the school he has significant experience working with our key demographic of new umpires – teenagers.”
Westgarth, who umpired 74 AFL (then VFL) games from 1982-1986, before becoming a teacher, said retaining umpires would be his initial focus.
“The WRFL umpiring body has grown significantly over the past three years.
“And I have been fortunate enough to be involved in that growth with my involvement with the MacKillop academy.
“We’ve had over 150 umpires go through the academy in the last four years. However, we have only retained around 30.
“We also now face the challenge of developing our crop of young umpires into established senior WRFL umpires.
“I’m also looking forward to the challenge of working with established umpires in further developing their skills across all three disciplines, and given my experience I believe I am best placed to achieve that goal.”
Meanwhile, Spotswood player-coach Chris O’Keefe has won the Barry Priest Medal for best and fairest in the Western Region Football League division 1.
O’Keefe is widely regarded as the premier onballer in the competition and carved up opposition midfields this season, catching the eyes of the umpires.
He won the count with 25 votes, four ahead of Altona midfielder Travis Lunardi and Deer Park crumber Kevin Klix, both finishing with 21.
Tim Jenkins, a St Albans star who is a dual Priest Medal winner, finished with 18 votes, as did Port Melbourne Colts ruckman Brad Julier. Parkside forward Robert Ford was a convincing winner of the division 2 best and fairest, finishing on 19 votes, six ahead of Devan Ellis (Wyndhamvale), Ricky Elkins (Coburg Districts) and Beau Guest (Yarraville-Seddon).
Altona veteran Brett Miller won the division 1 reserves medal by a whopping 16 votes, while there was a tie in the division 2 reserves count with Braybrook’s Paul May sharing the spoils with Yarraville-Seddon’s Mohammad Allouche.
Albion young gun Kym Taylor was the WRFL’s rookie of the year.
