It is the second time Gaal has earned the honour and caps off a sensational season in which he was also selected for the Rugby Australia high performance program which will be his next step towards international refereeing.

Gaal made history in August, 2016, when he became the Newcastle Hunter Rugby Union's youngest first grade referee. The only thing which delayed his debut was the Australian Rugby Union stipulates first grade referees must be at least 18.

He then made national and international headlines in 2017 when officiating in the NHRU under-19 grand final he was struck by Maitland Blacks player Mark Meafua who was subsequently banned for 10 years.

Gaal said he moved quickly on from the incident but did learn lessons.

“There was nothing really to take from it refereeing wise,” he said. “I had no affect on how that player reacted, it was just his reaction, nothing to do with me. It did help me realise that I could have a significant event like that and look past it and just focus on refereeing. 

“I think a lot of the worry initially was ‘Is this going to affect my refereeing? Am I going to be hesitant now? Is this going to change way I go about it?’

“Thankfully I was able to move past it pretty easily and be able to get out the following week refereeing.”

Gaal said thanks to referees such as Newcastle’s Dru Tonks, who officiated at the Commonwealth Games, a lot of pathways had been opened up for young referees to progress.

“They’ve put some effort in at the ARU to try to make the pathways more available, this season in particular, and just helping referees from outside Sydney in general,” he said.

”Being a young guy all I really have to do is take every opportunity they are giving me.

“Dru has opened up so many doors. He refereed in Sydney last year, taking charge in the second grade grand final. This year he is going down to Sydney full time.”

Tonks will join Gaal as an assistant referee at the Sydney Sevens.

“The international referees are doing the games in the middle,” he said

“A lot of these guys I’m going to be with have so much experience, especially the IRB guys. So really it is about taking all I can from them to help me in my own refereeing.”

Gaal said the ARU had improved its support and pathways for referees in the country and the support he received from Newcastle rugby and his peers was outstanding.

“Doing all the things required to getting to first grade was quite difficult at the time because I was that bit younger.

“But having the path spelled out to me earlier in my refereeing made it easier to set those type of goals.

“You hit 18, do a first grade game which I was able to do, move up the ranks do finals in Newcastle which I did last year, I ended up doing the third grade grand final.  

“It makes it easy for us to try and move up and reach the goals we want to.”

Gaal said as part of the development program, participants were assigned a personal coach.

“They help us assess the games and what we can do to move forward with out refereeing, which is something I’m looking forward to.

“In Newcastle we're quite fortunate as all our games recorded on BarTV which means our coach can be anywhere.”