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 three years, with the aim of continuing to increase umpire numbers and provide 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 he has significant experience working with our key demographic of new umpires — teenagers.”
Westgarth, who umpired 74 AFL (then VFL) games from 1982-86, before becoming a teacher, said retaining umpires would be his initial focus.
“The WRFL umpiring body has grown significantly in the past three years. And I’ve 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 past four years. However, we’ve only retained around 30. We also now face the challenge of developing our crop of young umpires into established senior WRFL umpires.”
Meanwhile, Spotswood player-coach Chris O’Keefe has won the Barry Priest Medal as best and fairest in the Western Region Football League division 1.
O’Keefe, widely regarded as the premier onballer in the competition, carved up opposition midfields this season.
He won with 25 votes, four ahead of Altona midfielder Travis Lunardi and Deer Park crumber Kevin Klix.
Parkside forward Robert Ford was a convincing winner of the division 2 best and fairest, finishing on 19 votes.
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.
