With Northern Tasmania Football Umpires Association head coach Andy Gower estimating his crew are about 40-50 short across field, boundary and goals with anyone from 12 years of age encouraged.

"We are looking at different ways to get young people into umpiring," he said.

"Obviously abuse has been a situation where it's detracted away from umpiring, so the AFL have taken a really good stance this year and we've got some education around that, so there will be a zero-tolerance in regards to abuse.

"We really want to attract these young people, so we'll be doing Facebook, radio and we will look at TikTok as a bit of fun stuff."

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Joining forces with Greg Morton this year, the umpires' coaching panel is almost brand new, with long-time leader Mick Clayton staying on.

"Our philosophy is around coaching and setting people up to succeed, not to fail.

"On a Tuesday night there will be a fair bit of running to get our fitness up but on Thursday night, it will be a real focus on how to make decisions, what position to get into and on video and education stuff."

One of Gower's umpiring crew is Jake McKercher, who joined a decade ago alongside a good mate.

"We thought we'd come along, give it a go and earn a bit of money," he said.

"We stayed due to the people around and the culture and both enjoy footy, so it's been enjoyable."

Now 24, McKercher started as a boundary umpire and then transitioned to a field umpire through junior games on a Sunday.

"We weren't thrown in the deep end, we were really coached along to make that transition and it was a pretty smooth one if you work hard."

If interested, please get in touch with Gower on 0428 819 677.