Running in the Sunshine

I've reffed at the Rosslyn Park Schools 7s for several years and finally, this year, we've had some sevens weather, indeed its been more like Dubai than Roehampton. Its a great occasion, 20,000 students from home and abroad and the same could be said for the refs this year. The London Society brought across a number for development refs from Singapore, India and Hong Kong who were certainly surprised by the weather if not the quality of the food (burger and chips x 4 days is hardly the food of champions).

I am always amazed by the standards of some of the teams, especially as we get down to the play-offs and finals, many of these kids are already better than I ever was as a player. The event also proves to be a great social event for the refs, we rarely get to share the camaraderie that players enjoy as down in the lower orders we are usually travelling alone. Sharing down time between games for 4-5 days is a great opportunity for a joke or to get feed-back on your performance. There is always a good turn out of the usual characters to use up the allocation of beverage tokens at the end of the day. 

Whilst the good weather was welcome, it took its toll with hard grounds increasing injuries to players though it appeared to be cuts and grazes rather than the broken bones and dislocations we saw last year. The warmth seemed to help with muscle ache too, I seemed to be as fresh at 4pm as I was at 11am. This may be on account of my improved fitness, I certainly found that trying an ice bath each night helped in my recovery. 

I did suffer one misfortune, I only reffed one match on Wednesday after being knocked out 1 minute into my second game. A conversion was being kicked onto the field and I had signalled it was good and turned to write down the score when the ball hit me square on the back of the head. I found myself on the floor and mildly groggy the medics deemed me unfit to continue and I spent the rest of the day as a spectator. It was my first knock out on a rugby field and is a good example of why you should always keep your eyes on the ball!

What did I take away from the week, firstly my fitness is definitely improving, rarely did I feel I was struggling and also found myself being more efficient with my running lines as I read the game better and thought about where I needed to be. I found myself actively looking for an excuse not to blow and keeping it moving, those 50-50 forward passes where allowed to go in the interests of fast'n'flowing. I've received a few comments regarding poor use of advantage recently, I think this is a habit born of wanting to tidy up scrappy low level games. Now I'm getting better games there is less chance of the ball getting lost in scruffy rucks or foul play spilling over into a punch up. There are not many more games to develop this approach but I've started to adapt my style accordingly. 

Finally quote of the week came from one of the 16yo academy refs, "I think I'm allergic to Deep Heat, its made  my skin go red and hot!" Kids today!

Bombay Mix

For most of us rugby and India only mixed at 10.30 on a Saturday night after 10 pints but a recent Society meeting saw a couple of referees from the subcontinent talk to us on the Game in their part of the world. The London Society has undertaken an exchange with India as part of the generous sponsorship from Standard Chartered Bank. I was surprised to hear that two of the oldest clubs in world rugby are Bombay Gymkhana and Calcutta (of the Cup fame). Despite Britain’s long residence in the country the locals failed to take up the game to the same degree as the rest of the colonies; preferring, to whoop us at cricket instead.
These days, the iRB are leading the development of the game and the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2011 is proving some development focus as well as much needed pitches. There are only two pitches in the country during the monsoon season! Since 2001 players numbers in Indian have risen from 1,500 to over 17,000 as development of the game has focused on armed forces and the police as well as youth.

http://rugbyindia.in/

Referee development is more difficult, there are very few in the country and they suffer from having on a small number of games, typically 4-5 per year. Then there are distances involved with limited expenses to cover travel and with only one assessor to cover the entire country getting help for improvement is a slow process. The two referees who came to London were found 4 games each, both youth and senior and were assessed at each. There thoughts are that with adequate support from Standard Chartered this type of exchange can continue in Indian and other developing rugby nations.
A final story, the corresponding London referee who visited India was given a match between Uzbekistan and the Bombay Police. It was all going well with the large crowd enjoying the game. Unfortunately a high tackle by the Uzbeks provoke ire amongst the crowd and 150 plastic chair welding spectators invaded the pitch and began attacking players and each other!

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