Netball: Treat umpiring as your sport, recruiter urges

Parekura Muraahi has been appointed umpire development officer for Netball Wanganui. Photo/Supplied

Parekura Muraahi wants people to consider umpiring as their sport of choice.

The Wanganui woman has been appointed Netball Wanganui's umpire development officer, a newly created role which will focus on attracting new umpires and creating clear development options.

"The key challenge is to get people to accept umpiring as a sport," Muraahi said.

"There really are people that choose umpiring as their sport and these people are absolute athletes. If we can develop that mindset here, it will be great for our game, it lifts the quality of the game."

Only a few weeks into the job, she said the future looked bright.

"Our pool is growing quite quickly. There are a lot of people that want to get into umpiring but there has been nobody to co-ordinate that pathway."

Muraahi, who has been involved in netball for more than 30 years, will oversee training sessions, development, and will create an umpiring strategic plan.

"It's been a bit of a baptism of fire," she said.

Netball Wanganui game development officer Lisa Murphy said creating the new position had been a necessary step.

"Umpires are an essential part of netball and it's just about developing. We've got to keep on developing umpires at a young age," Murphy said.

"It's quite a huge role and we needed to have someone just doing that."

She said Muraahi began the role as a volunteer at the start of the year. "Because it was working so well, as Netball Wanganui we decided to employ somebody."

Murphy said umpires had to be passionate about it: "Having Pare in there really is going to hopefully build that up."