Matt Clark Appointed AFL South Coast Umpire Coach Manager
We are thrilled to announce that Matt Clark has been appointed to the position of AFL South Coast Umpire Coach Manager for the 2019 season.
This is a volunteer role which will see Matt coach the senior umpires, but also lead the umpire coaching team in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven Juniors.
Matt is well known on the South Coast and is a highly accomplished umpire himself having officiated in the last four Senior Men’s Grand Finals as well as Illawarra Juniors prior to that. Matt is well respected within the region and already has a great rapport with AFL South Coast Clubs.
We are really looking forward to Matt creating a terrific environment for the regions umpires, which will hopefully lead to increased recruitment of umpires, greater retention and increased on-field standards.
Congratulations Matt and we look forward to the year ahead under your leadership!
Matt can be contacted at southcoastumpires@afl.com.au
Whilst on umpiring, there have been a number of slight changes to the AFL NSW/ACT staffing structure. After two fantastic years living and breathing AFL South Coast, Pierce Field has recently been promoted to State Umpiring Manager which is a great reward for his hard work across both Sydney and the South Coast. This combined with the establishment of South Coast as a standalone region in 2018 has allowed us to review the optimum umpiring structure for the region and has resulted in Jake Bateman assuming responsibility for AFL South Coast along with AFL Canberra and the Sapphire Coast. We welcome Jake to the region and look forward to watching him work collaboratively with Matt and our member clubs.
Jake’s contact details are 0481 211 536 and jake.bateman@afl.com.au, and will be the AFL NSW/ACT Umpiring Staff contact moving forward.
Jake and Matt will touch base with clubs soon, however in the interim, please direct any new umpire enquiries to the link below:
https://www.cognitoforms.com/AFLNSWACTUmpiringDepartment/umpireaflonthesouthcoast2019
Pre-season training for all umpires kicks off Wednesday 13 February at Thomas Dalton Park (aka South Dalton) in Towradgi at 6:00pm – any new umpires are welcome to come down.
