Samoa National Netball 2011 and NZ Umpiring Badge

In January 2011 the Samoa Netball Association held national trials to select the squad to compete for Samoa at the Netball World Championships in Singapore in July. Trialists from Australia, New Zealand and local Samoan girls fought it out on court for a place in the team. Cyclone Wilma managed to wreck some havoc on the netball courts at Apia park and caused many more leaks in an already leaky roof so trials had to be swiftly moved to one of the gymnasiums at Tuanaimato, Faleata. We were fortunate enough to have two visiting umpire coaches from New Zealand who worked with the Samoa Netball umpires during the week long events, coaching and mentoring to help us improve our skills. On the final day myself and “Joanne” sat our NZ Umpiring Badges while umpiring one of the trial games … and we passed!! This was very exciting and is an excellent achievement for us and for Samoa Netball as now we qualify to be invited to umpire at certain events in New Zealand and progress further.

In April 2011 we were invited, along with 2 others from Samoa, to attend an Umpires Training Camp in Auckland along with umpires from Fiji and the Cook Islands. This was a fantastic week of training and umpiring in local competitions and nice to focus time just to umpiring. We stayed in Henderson, West Auckland, right by the Waitakere Trust stadium where Adam and I had attended the World Champs in 2007 and got to see the Pulse vs Mystics game live. We have now been named in the OPUS – Oceania Pacific Umpiring Squad and I have been invited to umpire in October in Napier at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships, a tournament where a number of Silver Ferns have been identified in the past. I’m expecting this competition to be fast and furious and am beginning to see why I need to reach 14.5 on the YoYo test to be an umpire at this level! We appreciate the help we receive from Netball New Zealand with our umpiring and know we could not have achieved these results without. There has been mention of becoming an IUA (International Umpires Association) umpire for Samoa. This will require further testing and nailing of Postion, Vision and Timing including that pesky Advantage rule which is my next mission to accomplish. Maybe in October ……..