A three-time Ballarat Football League grand final goal umpire, two-time VFL grand final and one time AFLW grand final umpire, the 30-year-old has risen through the ranks to earn his first start, heading to Launceston on Sunday to officiate the Hawthorn versus Brisbane Lions match.

Currently an AFL rookie listed umpire, Leonard got a last-minute call up after a number of games were moved to Victoria at the weekend, meaning a host of umpires were unable to travel from their states.

He was able to secure a fly-in, fly-out ticket on the same flights as the Hawthorn team in order to make his debut.

"It all happened pretty quickly," Leonard said. "I got a call at 6.30pm on Saturday night and which said I'm umpiring in Tasmania.

"For the next four hours the phone was running hot, trying to organise flights, it was a pretty sleepless night. I woke up about 5am and couldn't get back to sleep.

"I was pretty tired by the end of it, it was great to get home about 8pm on Sunday night."

Leonard said he was happy with his first game, and admitted to some nerves about the idea of using the goal review system for the first time, fortunately, he didn't need any assistance with any of his decisions.

Reaching the top level of the game is not an easy task for a goal umpire with it rare for someone to retire, or even rarer for someone to get injured.

Leonard's opportunity to be rookied into the ranks came after one umpire was injured when champion Dustin Martin collided with him.

"Some of the goal umpires have done 250 games," he said.

"When they do make it, they can stay for a while. In my time in the VFL only five or six guys have been promoted to the AFL list.

"There's no draft system, it's a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

"I did umpire the 2019 VFL grand final, but the guy I did it with had done four, so it was his turn when a position came up, obviously there was no VFL footy last year to put forward your case.

"You do have some bad years and some good years, you've just got to stick at it.

"Every game is scored by one of the coaches. Were you in the correct position? Was it behind the flight or on the line? How far from the contest, best position, being able to read the play well, you get deductions and bonus points for every decision, there's a scale we work on and you always see minor improvements.

"For us we might have 20-30 decisions for the game, but if you make one bad decision you deem yourself as having a bad game."

Leonard said with a number of umpires back in the ranks this week, he expects to return to VFL level, but he hopes to land a full-time contract next season.

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