Victorian officials David Sinclair and Paul Mercer were honoured to be selected to officiate at the IFAF World Championships just recently in Canton Ohio USA.

Both men were selected for the 3rd time at International level: David served at the Junior’s in Austin Texas in 2012 and Kuwait in 2014, whilst Paul also officiated in Kuwait and at the Senior event in Austria in 2011. David was selected as an Umpire and Paul as a Back Judge.

The 26 officials on the panel represented 15 countries and included some of the best officials from outside of the USA. The pair, along with ACT official Shaun Dove worked 8-man crews and used headsets to communicate with each other.

Sideline officials switched sides at halftime (but the chains didn’t switch), there was instant replay and TV timeouts at the end of each quarter which Paul had to administer. This presented lots of new and different challenges which the Australian men enjoyed.

The trio were under the guidance of veteran Div I referee Bill LeMonnier (who was in Australia for the 2010 GA Senior Nationals in Melbourne as guest Supervisor) and SEC Centre Judge Alex Barrinaga whom they had both worked with before. After each game day they had video review sessions looking at successes and things to work on. Working with such experienced people was not only rewarding but also educational in terms of breaking down game footage for training purposes.

Two officials were rostered off on each game day but Paul and David had the good fortune to work on all 4 days. David was selected to Umpire the Bronze Medal game between Mexico and France while Paul was thrilled to be selected for the Gold Medal game between the USA and Japan. This is about the highest level Australian officials can aspire to and when the pair started this journey 30 years ago was something they could never have envisaged so unquestionably a career highlight!

Once the hard concluded they got to enjoy a minor league baseball game in Akron and visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame located next door to the stadium at which the games were played.

Gridiron Victoria congratulates all three men on representing their country with such distinction and is duly proud to have the very best officials in the land.