Hotham, 24, has been afforded the opportunity to work his way towards the NSWRL High Perfomance Squad under the new combined program and will have chances to oversee high level junior events in the upcoming season.

The Central West's refereeing ranks are well represented among the regional names.

Along with Hotham Group 10 is represented by Brandan Neville, Anthony Pond and Jesse Sahyoun, while Group 11's Jason Bain, Shanika Harpur and Aden Hayward also made the Regional Referee Development Squad.

"It's a big thing for us. It's a new concept that they trialled last year, combining the metro and regional squads, but this is the first year of running it properly," he said.

"It's really great seeing a lot of other Group 10 guys in there as well with Jesse, Pondy and Brandan."

Hotham is excited to see the merger of the metro and regional programs, since it can give referees in the country the chance to have better access to high level resources.

"This gives us access to the resources that the guys have in Sydney," he said.

"The metro squad have the likes of Gavin badger who is their head coach, so it gives us the opportunity to be tapped in to that. We get those resources, which is brilliant for us.

"The idea of the regional squad as well is that we don't have to travel as far to do the games that are out here.

"They're all very talented referees so it feels great to be recognised amongst them."

Hotham has been refereeing for the past six years and has quickly developed his skills in that time, already earning appearances at top level junior carnivals.

"I took it up full time when I was 18, and started making country squads the year after

"I've done some cool things. I went up with the national squad to Brisbane to do affiliated state programs and I've done finals in country championships. This here is a really exciting opportunity for me and I'm really looking forward to it."

Referees will train under Referee Operations Manager Paul Kalina and Officiating Development Coordinator Gavin Badger.

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