BAFRA
BAFRA official works Australian championship
By
May 20, 2023 - 9:42:02 PM

BAFRA member Phil Clarke officiated at the Australian Senior National Championships held on the Gold Coast in Queensland from 27th April-3rd May.

Phil Clarke at the Australian National Championships

He worked as Field Judge and Side Judge on 6-man crews during the tournament and was assigned as Side Judge for the Championship game.

Paul Mercer, Operations Manager of the Australian Gridiron Officials Association, was extremely pleased with Phil's performance. "He demonstrated good rules and mechanics knowledge, participated in our game reviews on the "off" days and attended the tournament dinner. It was a pleasure having him here and we thank him for his participation."

Phil happened to be out in Australia on holiday at the time of the tournament and volunteered his services. He was originally down to be a reserve official, but one official became unavailable and another was delayed en route so Phil was drafted. He performed so successfully that he was retained right the way through to the final, in which New South Wales beat Victoria.

Phil was delighted with the experience and honoured to take part. "It was a really good week. The slightly different mechanics took a little bit of getting used to, but I managed to adapt to it quite quickly and felt that I had a pretty good tournament and represented both myself and BAFRA in a good light."

One of BAFRA's mechanics found its way into use during the tournament. Using the ball boys to retrieve the ball after field goals was adopted as the standard for all the games after Phil had explained to the other officials how we do it in Britain.



© Copyright 2008 by bafa.org.uk