Once upon a time many, many, many moons ago I represented Port Pirie in the Country Championships as a referee & was constantly given between 7 & 10 games on the saturday & none on the sunday..... Was it because I was fit enough to do that many on the saturday & not good enough for the sunday? Prbably, but all I knew was I went away with $100 spending money for food & some goodies & would come home having bought all my food for the weekend with over $120 in my wallet..... thems were the days
ANYWAY
I am now a huge endorsee of junior referees & for the first time in those many moons I was not required to referee at the Country Champs as a representative for Port Pirie because we & many other associations were able to supply ample amounts of referees for the jobs
HOWEVER
we took 4 junior referees who each did 2 games on the Saturday & I think only 2 of them were required for 1 game each on the Sunday (may have been 3)..... Only 2 of the referees were VERY KEEN to have a go & in hind site, to what occurred the 2 referees that wanted to be there could have easily handled 4 games each on the sat & 2 more on the sunday particularly when their first game was at 1:30pm & the second at 7:30pm..... And then gained a lot more experience.
Not knocking Mark Ryan & his team of guys for the organising because I think the overwhelming response they received would have definately threw them off guard, but what annoys me is seeing 30+ year old men/women walking up & down the court getting seniority of 4+ games each, when the experience could be better passed to the juniors.
Thanks to the oldies like me who still put there hand up, but make way to the future.
