On the line: aspiring umps meet a pro

A recently Academies match had a very special guest, AFL-listed boundary umpire, Michael Barlow, who spent some time out of his pre-season training to coach AFL NSW/ACT boundary umpires Adrian Jones, Liam Ramsay and Nathan Wrigley.

Michael started his umpiring journey in 2010 as an AFL Canberra local umpire. He rose to the AFL ranks in 2018 and is clearly a star, being appointed to the 2021 Toyota AFL Grand Final.

Here’s a summary of the #umpchat between the elite and the aspiring boundary umpires.

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Michael, what do you enjoy most about coaching younger umpires? 

Michael Barlow: I enjoy coaching younger umpires because it reminds me of the position I was once in, and how fortunate I was to receive a similar level of support which helped me become motivated to improve and progress my umpiring journey.

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What’s the best piece of advice a community coach gave you? 

Michael Barlow: The best piece of advice a community coach has given me is to enjoy umpiring, because ultimately that is why we are involved. Umpires are lucky to have the best seat in the house to AFL and it is important to not lose sight of this.

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What did you enjoy most about being coached by an AFL Boundary Umpire?

Liam Ramsay: Having a professional opinion on my work is always greatly appreciated but knowing that my coach has gone from my current level of footy up to the top of the ranks has a different feeling altogether. Having Michael there to coach me greatly helped my confidence when running Academy games as he only focused on things I had to improve on and nothing mundane that I didn’t already know how to do.

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Nathan Wrigley: Gaining insight into how an AFL umpire prepares for and umpires their games and seeing the amount of attention to detail and concentration that is needed to progress to that level.

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What is a piece of feedback Michael gave you that you would like to implement into your games moving forward? 

Liam Ramsay: I’d love to implement more sprinting into my games compared to what I do now as I know it will benefit me moving forward, as harder games need faster and more demanding sprints on the boundary as the ball moves that much quicker down the field.

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Nathan Wrigley: A lot of feedback for boundary umpiring tends to focus on positioning, running and throwing but Michael’s advice on decision-making and the process we should all be going through whenever we make a decision is something I’m looking forward to implementing into my game to stay composed when making tight calls.

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