Hawes, a member of the VFL State League and Talent Pathway Development Umpire program, is Kyabram born and bred.
His family are big supporters of the Bombers, he is a former player himself and is close friends with several of the Kyabram senior squad.
The 21-year-old has only umpired Kyabram twice since joining the senior ranks of the Goulburn Valley league, but as a member of the 30-strong VFL development squad is mostly metropolitan based.
He is a regular with the Coates Talent League and now also has a handful of VFL practice matches to his credit.
While working his way through the ranks of the VFL umpiring program he is also studying teaching in Melbourne and training at Victoria Park — a little ironic considering it was probably not a first choice for location for umpires when it was the home of Collingwood Football Club’s home matches.
Hawes played with the likes of Cooper Vick, Bill Mclay and Riley Ironside in the Bombers’ under-18 team, but there were no favours. Mclay wasn’t afforded a free kick, while Vick and Ironside had only one apiece.
His goal is to end this season as a central umpire in the VFL competition.
It was a busy week for Hawes, who had umpired the Coates Talent League match between Greater Western Victoria and Ballarat on the Thursday before Saturday’s match at Rochester.
Hawes built a strong reputation when he spent a season umpiring in the Northern Territory Football League.
Another close connection to Kyabram was through Hawes’ more senior umpiring partner Mark Lambourn, who is the partner of Megan Mueller (the aunt of high leaping forward Kyle).
A former star of the GV competition himself, Lambourn spoke of the much debated dissent rule that had taken hold of the AFL competition.
“There was no dissent rule in the GV, we have zero tolerance to abuse anyway. It is a free kick and reportable,” Lambourn said.
He said while the Kyabram and Rochester match had three senior umpires, that would not be the case all season.
“Next week we won’t have enough numbers for three umpires in all senior GVL games,” he said.
For the record, Kyabram, as has become tradition in recent times, lost the free kick count 13-28.
