AFL umpire encourages young talent

TO celebrate community umpire week, AFL umpire Jacob Mollison visited Ballarat to train with local umpires.

Mollison has umpired more than 350 AFL matches including the 2021 grand final and began his career with the Albury Umpires League in 1997.

He visited City Oval on Wednesday and took part in drills with local umpires and answered their questions.

“It’s an awesome week where community umpires across Australia are going to be participating in the game day experience,” Mollison said.

“We’ve also got the privilege of going out to our community umpire groups and participating in training.”

Chris Jones, chairman of the Ballarat Football Umpires Association said the group is working on recruiting more umpires, particularly women and girls.

“Recruiting can be a challenge, and retention can be a challenge but if we give some youngsters a pathway to involvement in elite sport then that might be enough to encourage players to return year after year,” he said.

“Seeing someone who’s achieved that gives them that model of where they might like to end up.”

Community umpire week, which runs from Monday 28 April to Sunday 4 May, aims to highlight the contributions made by umpires and promote respect.

“We’ve actually had a 38 per cent increase in community umpires across the country which has been amazing,” Mollison said.

“Over the last three years… we’ve had a 71 per cent increase in women and girls participating in umpiring so we need to see that trend continue.”