The current study examined the physical and decision-making requirements of elite Australian football umpires during match play. Twenty-nine field umpires were assessed across 20 Australian Football League matches. Physical demands were monitored using global positioning system devices to record the total distance covered and high-speed running (HSR; >14.4 km·h -1 ) demands across each quarter. Decision-making performance was assessed via video by three elite umpire coaches who reviewed free kick accuracy during each match. These data were further analyzed according to the position (mid-zone or endzone) of the umpire when each decision was made. The average distance covered was 10,563 ± 608 m, of which 1952 ± 494 m was HSR. Significant reductions in distance covered were observed during the third (p=0.006) and fourth (p=0.001) quarters, compared to the first. An average of 44 ± 8 free kicks awarded per match with a decision accuracy of 84 ± 6%; however, there were no significant differences (p>0.05) in these measures across a match.Significantly (p<0.05) higher physical (HSR; relative distance) and decision-making requirements were observed within the mid-zone. The current data quantifies the physical and decision-making demands of Australian football umpiring, and demonstrated that despite a high physical workload, free kick accuracy is maintained across a match. This suggests that decision-making may not be directly compromised by the intermittent running demands of Australian football umpires. Positional rotations between the mid-zone and end-zone position allow for the demands to be shared amongst all field umpires during a match.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.