Sportsperson of Year: Game official

The Taranaki Daily News Sportsperson of the Year awards will be held in New Plymouth on Friday, November 23.  Today, we feature the nominees for the senior sportsman, junior sportsman, coach, and  game official awards.  The guest speaker for this year's awards night at the Plymouth International Hotel is former New Zealand representative hockey player Barry Maister.

Alan Henderson (inline hockey)

The level two inline hockey referee volunteers his time to referee game weekends throughout the season. Alan also mentors junior referees from the New Plymouth Roller Sports Club and hosts and facilitates level one referee workshops and runs refresher courses pre-season. he also prepares officiating schedules for the skating rink and ends the season by refereeing at the New Zealand championships.

Richard Kelly (rugby)

Richard is Taranaki's No 1 ranked rugby referee and is a current New Zealand Rugby Union high performance referee. He's controlled four NPC games in 2010, five in 2011 and this year has refereed nine games this year.Earlier this year, he was an assistant referee for four Super Rugby games and TMO in three other games. He is an amateur referee, but is likely to be elevated to the professional ranks next year.

- © Fairfax NZ News