Referee Development Key Component of NAI Sevens
Referee Development Key Component of NAI Sevens
One of the features, perhaps the responsibilities, of big tournaments is to develop good refereeing.
The quality of referees at major rugby events and tournament is crucial to having good competition. At the NAI 7s, they went a bit further this year, running a series of educational talks and development activities for the referees on the Thursday before the tournament started on Friday. The plan, said Andre Bruwer, who conceived and coordinated it, was to have refs pay their own way to Utah but come a day early. Then funds set aside for the refs would be used for the ref development.
Referee reps from Major League Rugby, WPL, and USA Rugby participated. Referees had some classroom time and also went outside. They even got a fitness test.
Teams checking in on Thursday afternoon saw the referees running the Bronco in the heat.
What that did was show the players that the referees were working hard, too. And it translated on the field. Yes, we can talk about the negative things that happened at the NAI 7s, and in fact GRR will address those in a separate piece of content, but the negative stuff all came from coaches and "fans." The players were respectful of the referees, even when they made mistakes (which of course they did) because it was clear they were working hard to get the job done.
Another nice piece of referee news was that test match referee Karl Dickson showed up to share his knowledge and referee games. He sat in on the classroom quietly, and many refs didn't even know he was there until he was introduced. From England, Dickson played professionally, playing over 160 times for Harlequins, before becoming a referee. He most recently refereed South Africa vs Ireland on July 13.
But he's not above refereeing the odd U14 game and was happy to blow the whistle or run touch in all types of brackets at the NAI 7s.
"They invited me to come out and just referee the tournament which is obviously a huge privilege to come out to somewhere I've never been before," Dickson told GRR. "And if I can give any sort of hints, tips, little bits to any of the referees that want to ask ... if I can give one or two little things which they can take away then I am helping the game that's given so much to me."
Some of Dickson's advice was about making calls with confidence and also that refereeing at different levels should be different—you might overlook a gray-area knock-on for U14s but in the U18 Elite final, you might not. Dickson came in with no ego and was adamant that he not referee any finals, because that was an opportunity for a US-based ref.
NAI 7s is a tough, demanding tournament for everyone, including the referees, and many of the games are of a very high level. It's a good proving ground for refs, which is why the tournament brings in referees from all over the country. But even more so, it's valuable when referee educators and the officials themselves take advantage the way they did in Salt Lake City.
