Tales and Flags

No game to referee this week as I was undertaking a Touch Judge development course. There is bit more to it that simply raising a flag roughly where the ball goes out. There is good deal about positioning, especially as play nears the goal line. Then there is the need to be the eyes in the back of the referee’s head, spotting trouble and communicating this to him, especially if both of you are wired up and linked to the TV. The secret code used to describe foul play is revealed. If the TJ describes the illegal action as ‘unnecessary’ then he is recommending a caution, ‘reckless’ means a yellow card and ‘dangerous’ warrants a red card.
Our tutor, Old Uncle Bob, is a former top, national referee and it is clear that from the video clips used, he favours swift justice for miscreants, recommending red cards far more quickly than any of the class.
Old Uncle Bob is well stocked with tales from his years with a whistle, two favourites from yesterday included the English international referee (not current) who’s pre-match routine included a couple of G&T’s before he took the field. Sounds more fun than Gatorade. Another English international referee arrived for France v Scotland with only a white shirt, forgetting the French change of strip. His only other top was a red training shirt, ripped at the side. With the aid of some safety pins he took to the field and the game passed without incident. However, his assessor did criticise him for not raising his arm high enough.
Spectator violence is something at has hit the news lately, but one of my classmates recounted a recent London New Zealand v Hammersmith match were a floored Kiwi was receiving a pasting from his opposite number. The swiftest retribution was delivered by the victim’s 5 foot girlfriend who matched on the field to deck the assailant with a decisive right hook! Classy bird!

Thursday's a Training Day...

One of the great benefits of the London Society of Referees is that it is able to attract great speakers to training nights. Wayne Barnes, a graduate of the society is a regular at meetings and last night one of the newest premiership referees PJ Doyle was giving the benefit of his wisdom. The main event was Neil Hatley, the Guinness premierships, most experienced prop and academy coach at London Irish.
Neil gave a fantastic talk on scrumaging, what players and coaches want from referees and how to achieve a fair contest. The England scrum coach Phil Keith-Roach gave an excellent talk some time ago, but Neil added a practical and well illustrated angle.
Key recommendation were to get front rows square and stationary before calling the engagement and what was extremely useful was to show front row misdeeds. Its all well and good talking about what should happen and what to look out for, but having it played to you in slow motion with an expert pointing it out was marvellous. The fact that many of these infractions were un-penalised by international referees provided much debate. It made me realise how much I had been missing or at least allowed to go, not realising the disadvantage I had perpetuated. Clearly a new vigour will apply at Saturday’s game.
ELV and IRB directives also came under discussion, as you might expect this included the 5m scrum offside enforcement, or lack there of. There is so much to watch at scrums, primarily because of safety, the distant drift of defenders to the ‘old’ offside will rarely be caught, particularly without touch judges. Out of the corner of the eye, 3m looks much the same as 5m. Unless the scrum is going well, not even the premiership referees appear to have penalised this yet.
Finally, we are under strict instruction from the IRB to enforce players onto their feet at rucks. We are all conscious of defending players diving off their feet to ‘win’ (read kill) the ball. Less emphasis has been placed on attacking players driving over the ball and going to ground or bridging the tackle. This prevents and obstructs the opposition trying to ruck the ball fairly, and needs to be punished. You have been warned, plenty to take into tomorrow’s game.