First, God Made Referees, Then He Invented Rugby To Keep Them Occupied....

[fulvio sammut]

A group of us, all older, not necesarily committee members, but still relatively active club members, were having a serious inpromptu discussion at the club last Tuesday. No, really, it happens.

The topic was referees, and the apparent bad run we have had with them in recent weeks. We had a variety of views on how to approach and deal with this.

The general consensus was that getting mad didn't help.

One suggestion was to invite senior referees and referee assessors to one or more training runs, to meet with players and explain their interpretation and implementation of the laws in game situations.

Another was to ensure that senior members and officials were strategically placed around the grounds to step in and attempt to stop any display of over emotion being manifested in referee abuse.

Yet another was for a small senior group to privately, pre game, take aside persons who were known to likely offend in this regard, and counsel them on the consequences of their over excitement.

It was suggested that the club expand the parameters of its obligations toward referees by having an official referees support and hospitality officer at all home and away games so that the refs problems, if any, were immediately addressed and they could be made to feel a valued part of the game and the team involvement, not just an appendix to it.

I'm sure there were other suggestions, but only these come readily to my insomniacal recollection this early in the morning.


One thing occured to me afterwards, which was the glaring elephant in the room that nobody saw, or perhaps wanted to see. And that was referee education and standards and their effect on player and supporter reaction.

From my perspective, RugbyWA, and indeed club officialdom, are approaching the issue as a club, player and supporter problem, which of course to a significant degree it is. But it is also a referee problem,

Referees like anyone else, have attitude and and personality issues.

Some, with all due respect, lack competence.

Some lack knowledge of the laws, hardly surprising, with the issues created by the ELVS and their application to different competitions.

Some are too heavily associated with their club of membership or affiliation to have any semblance of objectivity.

I could go on, but my intention here is just to suggest some of the issues, not embark on a referee witch hunt.

My point is that the Referees Association itself has to address issues within its control as well.

We need fitter refs in the higher grades.

We need some discretion in referee allocation so that refs are not put in a position of ref'ing "their" club against others. This can sometimes more adversely affect their club than the opposition.

Refs should be counselled against having any pre conceived view of a game or its participating teams.

It will, in my opinion, only be when a holistic approach is taken to the problem, with an acceptance that neither side is wholly guilty or innocent, and that both have serious things to address, that permanent inroads will be achieved.

Shuffling the blame and threatening one side or the other will only excacerbate the situation.

Now, what do others think?

[rick boyd]

MY advice is, go and watch a game as a neutral. Two clubs other than your own, a game in which you have no emotional stake. You will be amazed at how much more competent the referees become.

[mudskipper]

First, God Made Referees, Then He Invented Rugby To Keep Them Occupied....

Then gave them the ELVs and then the short arm penalty then took it away...

[ella10]

I think as per players there are some good ones and some bad ones. Luck of the draw I guess. We actually got a ref down the week before a game to have a chat to the players. It resulted in the only loss of the season for us so far!! I agree they need to be more approachable and respectful as I know players and coaches are struggling to communicate with some of them who thinks people come down to games to watch them. People and management skills are the areas some of them can improve in - In relation to the game and the laws I think they've come a long way in the last 4 years!! They are a lot fitter and more educated on the laws. It is certainly a job I won't like to do but saying that they chose to do! All players and coaches expect is consistency! I believe that there should be consequences for referees as there are for players and coaches under performing - that will bring the best out of all involved!

As bad weather it is something that we cannot control so we just have to adapt each week and deal with it. I actually did what RB suggested you to do FS and watched 2 random sides playing and my opinion has not changed at all. Maybe there should be a requirement of all of them playing the game or have played the game and coaches to have at least a level 1 referee accreditation. Therefor the understanding and respect for the other guy's job become clear to all involved. Anyway we have to make sure we stay on the same path and that is to develop the game of rugby in WA bitching and moaning wont do that so we have to work with them to fix problems and better all involved.

have a great off weekend!!!

[Ecky]

So there I was thinking so myself "Ecky, what are the reasons you wouldn't respond to this thread?" and then I replied to myself "Mate, I can't think of any." which resulted in my reply to my reply "Yep, that's what I thought, go for it."

Anyhoo....

In random order:

I will bet that those of you who watch, play or coach Premier or 2nds will have had a higher standard of ref in the past few (say 2) years than previously. That is to say the gap between 1st ranked and, say 10th ranked ref is smaller now than it was in 2007.
One of the results of this generally higher standard is that those top-ranked refs are fitter (as a group) than they were previously.

The Refs' Association has regular education meetings - in previous years it was ance a fortnight; this year it is once a month. Coupled with that is the very regular dissemination of information/instructions from the RWA Referee Manager.

There are a limited number of Referee Coaches, who are each allocated a fixture to attend every week they are available and they usually appraise the performance of the refs on the "main pitch": U/20s, 2nds and Premier. From the appraisal comes a formal report which each ref gets, accompanied by a post-match discussion by said coach. Thise pro-active refs will not only consider the verbal coaching and the written report, but also review their game (as these 3 matches are usually filmed as well) on DVD and make the necessary adjustments to their performance in ensuing weeks.

Some refs, like some players, captains and coaches, have personalities that do not easily lend themselves to being particularly approachable and some have a "police"-like mentality where they would rather penalise the act rather than try to talk the potential offender out of the offence. That is their make-up and I imagine it is difficult to adapt away from that.

"with all due respect" usually means the exact opposite....

There are a few referees with "ties" to a particular club. I know of none of those few (in the higher grades) who let this affect their management of the game. A mate of mine (now a ref coach, but ex state player and 1st grade ref) with ties to a particular club told me that he never, ever gave a toss about which two teams he refereed but would often have the comments from "his" team post-game that he was harsher on them than the opposition. It may be all a matter of perspective, especially if your team is playing the team with whom the ref had these "ties".

Pre-conception: addressed recently in a different thread. Personally, I had a very bad experience at one clubs in the old Districts days and asked not to be appointed to their games for the remainder of that season. I have refereed them a few times since and, as the specific individuals are no longer associated with that club, have not had any problems since. Even with my previous experience, i have always reffed what was in front of me at the time.

It is part of my pre-match procedure to look up the RWA grade tables just to see where each team I have are placed in relation to each other. If, for instance, I have Wanneroo v Rockingham in Premiers, I would plan my game day strategy different to, say, Paly v Soaks purely because of the difference in table position.

After a few seasons of refereeing the top grades, it is obvious that a ref will have developed a familiarity about how that team plays, as well as with the players themselves. This will result in what might be termed a pre-conception. How would the ref NOT have it? (How would the Currie Cup refs not know that Butch James finds it difficult to tackle by the use of arms?)

A sweeping generalisation that, for example, "all Kensington players are dirty players who will try to eye-gouge their opposition behind play" does not, in my experience, exist. More commonly it is (or was) widely accepted that any player with the surname Thomas may have to be watched a bit more closely that others. From what I've seen and heard, this wasn't unique to the refereeing community.

Consistency will always be some form of issue, due to the individual personality of the ref. Much like the outside backs trying to figure just what Giteau would do next.... I would imagine the best result likely is that the ref is consistent throughout that particulr game, and consistent with both teams.

A referee is most likely to react when encountering a snipey, whiny scrum half (not half back) type, a la G Gregan. That player does no favours for his team by constantly bringing himslef to the attention of the ref. If noting else, the ref will likely get distracted by the constant whining that he/she might miss an infringement by the opponents. The ref will not, however, miss any little infringement by said whining turd.

My lunch break now being over, I will ponder some more and add to this a bit later if so inclined.

[Action Hardcore]

Cool it, Mr Buscemi...

[KalaFan]

"He's got the whole world in his hands"

[Ecky]

Cool it, Mr Buscemi...

I am cool; no need to worry about me

[normie]

"Why am I Mr. Pink?"

[Ecky]

What? You're Mr Pink?

[Action Hardcore]

I am cool; no need to worry about me

NO your not

[KalaFan]

He's cool like my balls in summer

[Action Hardcore]

He's cool like my balls in summer

Hahaha Testify!!! Cool like stealing an old ladies handbag

[eleypinkbit]

Just on a side note about refs, for the younger grades, each team needs to provide a couple of sideline refs - they now need to have attended a reffing course, previously they hadn't. So maybe this will flow through the game with the players having knowledgeable refs from earlier stages of their rugby life