The Art of Refereeing - Part Two

AS IT HAS always been, the referee’s brief is to control and manage a game between two teams, in a sporting spirit, according to the Laws, so that a fair result is achieved. 

However, referees are individuals, and each will see a situation differently, each will interpret what they see differently. Having said that, when you stick a group of referees in a room, show them a clip and ask the group to give their decision, their decision will be 80-90% the same.

Referee development starts with local societies, where they progress through a grading system from Level 12 to level 6. The levels are awarded and match the level of game that the referee is capable of managing. There are no hard and fast rules about how a referee achieves promotion in the grades, but I think it’s fair to say that it is usually by way of consistent performances which are assessed by a number of internal and out-of-county assessors.

I’ll talk about assessors and coaches in another missive, later (unless someone with a far more interesting topic to write about emerges in the meantime!).

If a referee at Level (L) 6 demonstrates the potential to go to L5, the region (ours is Midlands Group) takes the referee into their fold, and they appoint the referee to games across the country.

Again, a series of consistently good reports will see the referee added to the National Panel of Referees (NRP) which consists the top 50 referees in the country. Similarly, a referee will climb the slippery slope to higher level games based on their demonstrable capability and competence.

It used to be unusual for a referee to get to the NPR in less than 8-10 years starting from scratch, but the way the game has developed on the playing side, match officials now progress much quicker, and it’s not unusual to see someone progress from society referee to NPR in five years. Exceptionally, it can take less and the best two examples I can give of that would be Luke Pearce (NPR status at 17) and Christophe Ridley, who went from Leicester Tigers player to NPR referee in three years.

So that’s the process that sees referees get to the level that we see at the BPA, and they have all been through the same process, albeit some more quickly than others.

So where does it all go wrong? It’s about the individual.

Not the person, but their individual priorities over what is important and, then, when to blow the whistle.

Let me give an example. We’re five metres from their goal line, there’s a ruck and we choose to pick and drive, but one of their wingers is offside 15m away when we play the ball, do we want the penalty?

Your answer is important here, because that’s the same process as the referee is going through and the answer is, what would the players want?

If you’ve said give us the penalty, he was offside, you’re not wrong. If you said play on – he might have been offside but had no influence on what we did or how well it was executed, you’re not wrong. Priorities.

By the way, if you said his offside caused our scrum half to change his decision to pass it wide and keep it tight, you could also be right.

Confusing isn’t it?

So where’s the balance?.

Three points against a potential seven, if I give the penalty. Not a guaranteed three points either - the winger was 15m wider out in the field than the play, so it could have been a kick from the touchline.

Here’s what is likely to be given. IF - a big if - the ref decides that the winger was in a position to affect what happened next, he might play advantage so he has it to come back to if the pick and drive fails.

However, if the referee gets an input about that offside from one of his ARs he will almost certainly play advantage at least and might well give the penalty which can also bring howls of derision from the attacking coaches because they would have wanted the opportunity to take seven points from the goal line visit.

Here’s another question then.

Do we want the put-in at the scrum to be straight, as stated in rugby law? Or do we want the ball in and out so play can continue?

The purists would argue for decisions in line with the law. The referees recognise that collapsed scrums (can and do) cause injuries; serious ones at that, so reducing the risk of collapse is the priority. Ergo, complete the scrum (safely) and usually resulting in the ball coming out on the side who put the ball in (i.e. the non-offenders). We want competition, but we want safe competition, and if you were to ask any match official what their highest priority is, the answer is safety, every time.

So you can’t have it both ways sometimes. Referees have to determine what the players want, what the coaches want and what is in the best interests of the game which aren’t always the same thing.

If anyone has any specific requests for topics for inclusion in further parts of this series, please comment below.