JP Doyle deals with difficulty

London refs where treated to a pep-talk from the pocket rocket that is JP Doyle the Irish-English premier referee on Thursday. He spoke about focusing on the how you wanted your game to played and dealing with difficult  moments on the field. The two clear messages to come out of the talk were to believe that you will give those players a better game than anyone else by applying your own game philosophy. What ever that philosophy is, it should focus on making the game better for the players and spectators, if you are refereeing for yourself and not them, then you are refereeing for the wrong reasons.

Doyle had some interesting clips showing iRB refs responding to challenging situations. One of the good examples was Wayne Barnes giving two red cards in a Harlequins v Leicester game. 

Barnes has seen the incident clearly as it happen, he's gone to his AR, described what he's seen. He doesn't ask for any input from AR, he is using the time to clarify he thoughts and given the technology, explaining to TV why and what he going to do. He is calm, assetive and clear through out. 

Steve Walsh also featured. 

This clip sees the Waratahs get frustrated with Walsh and it all starts to get personal. Walsh's response to the dissent is unnecessary, the sarcasm only irritated the players further. 

Finally this clip of Dave Pearson

Clearly there is a lot going on here, it kicks off behind the referee, he is following the ball but the assistant referee, Sean Davey is watching the fight closely. Pearson approaches the AR to find out what is going on but then starts to suggest his own interpretation to the AR. Davey is trying but failing to give a perspective that Pearson fails to grasp. 

All three of these referees are highly experienced in pressure matches and the clips show us that remaining calm and focussed on an un-impassioned consideration of the evidence isn't always achievable. Barnes successfully uses the space of a chat to the AR to collect his thoughts and come to a clear and concise course of action. Getting time to deal with a situation on your won term is the most valuable thing you can manage, run through what you've seen, communicate clearly with other officials and players; deal with evidence, not emotion.

Holy Trinity

An exciting prospect for next week's referee training is that it will feature three top international referees giving us the benefit of their wisdom. Our own Wayne Barnes will be joined by Bryce Lawrence and Stuart Dickinson. The latter two will, no doubt, be keen to pick up tips on refereeing the scrummage from the lively JP Doyle (one to watch) .

Watch Your Tackle

Ahead of my second match of the season, the Referee Society brought out JP Doyle to talk us through refereeing the tackle at last night’s meeting. It is a huge benefit having Premiership referees in the Society to aid our development. He got us thinking about what type of tackle we were watching, offensive, gang, isolated, etc and how this might change our priorities for what subsequent offensives might occur. Is it likely to be a tackler not moving or a ball carrier not releasing?
His focus is clearly to avoid giving a penalty, the early whistle and a scrum being the preferred option. In judging if it should be a penalty, he clearly looks for the crime to be clear and obvious, something that will change depending on the observer’s reference point, particularly between player and referee. Next up, he looks to see if the play is positive, the tackler may be on the wrong side, but is making an effort to move away or is he prevented from rolling away?
Finally, the referee should use his judgement as to what is ‘fair’, is a player or side being rewarded for good, positive player and is the outcome equitable? This final point places the referee as an arbitrator (what the French call the man with a whistle) rather the enforcer as seen but the Anglo-Saxon world.
All good points to take into the weekend and I will try and watch some of JP’s game between Wasps and Worcester to see how he implements this approach.