Hello all, hope the last few weeks have been great for all and you’re looking forward to final games of the season. This year has certainly been interesting and as we near the end of season we will do a round up of the key talking points in a letter bulletin along with key stats.

Autumn International tickets are also available, please see below for the section detailing this.

In this bulletin we have some updates to provide from the RFU as follows:

• Code of Conduct – The RFU have issued a brief to all Societies to share the Code of Conduct for Match Officials. We are already ahead of this with the document on our website under ‘Referee Hub – Useful Documents’, link here for those who would like to read it
• Match Official Abuse – In light of an increase in Match Official Abuse, the RFU has reissued the briefing document as sent out at the start of the season. This can be found on our website and by clicking this link.
• Safeguarding & Child Protection – The RFU have issued a common sense guide relating to safeguarding across the Junior leagues. Please click this link to review the document; this can also be found on our website under ‘Referee Hub – Useful Documents’

Cup Fixtures

With only 2 weeks of the league season remaining, the cup competition starts. Please ensure your availability is up to date on WTR to allow the appointments team to cover these games.

RFU Community Game Update

Please find the link below to read the latest community game update from the RFU.

https://rise.articulate.com/share/orUcaOH7Ar4bxXtLwkTLi26QdaUEs_Z_#

Autumn Internationals

Autumn Internationals 2024

November 2^nd                     England v New Zealand

November 9^th                      England v Australia

November 16^th                   England v South Africa

November 24^th                   England v Japan              

We can apply for tickets as of the 24^th April with a deadline of May 25^th.

Our allocation this year is small so initially members will be limited to two (2) tickets per game. The exception is the Japan fixture where more can be requested, subject to availability. If any more are made available we will let you know or the limit is lifted.

Ticket prices for the New Zealand game are:

£199.00        £169.00        £139.00        £111.00        £91.00

Ticket prices for the Australia and South Africa games are:

£139.00        £129.00        £109.00        £91.00          70.00

Ticket prices for the Japan game are:

£89.00          £75.00          £65.00          £54.00          £44.00

The above prices are cheaper with the society than through general admission.

Any member being allocated tickets by the Society must use them for their own personal use. Under no circumstances are the tickets to be resold.

To request tickets you must be a member of the society, please send Dave an email, dave@yoyomail.co.uk, or use the form below indicating the match and/or matches you wish to attend, 1 or 2 tickets (or more for Japan) and the payment amount chosen.

If you are allocated tickets the RFU will contact you to make payment.

Good afternoon, hope you’ve had a great February in terms of refereeing and watching the six nations.

To kick things off, here are a few shots from social media of our refs in action over the month of Feb. We now have a new Instagram page so if you have any action shots please tag the page and give us a follow.

In this bulletin we have a few items to cover both for awareness, interest and to keep you abreast of what’s coming up across the Society, covering:

• End of Season Meeting
• Match Official Abuse
• Safeguarding Update
• Board vacancy for the Society
• Rosslyn Park 7’s tournament
• Spotlight on 7’s
• New Society Feature

End of Season Meeting

We are looking to hold a Society end of season meeting. We are yet to decide on a location but to aid numbers etc I will put a post on our facebook page with options, to allow us to gauge numbers and venue – the usual choices are clubs in and around the M5/M42 junction but we will also provide an option for other suggestions that, a. can cater for sufficient numbers and b. allow a good spread of referees to attend – please feel free to suggest.

The agenda for the meeting is yet to be finalised but we are hoping to provide food, a special guest speaker and awards on the evening.

Further details to follow…

Match Official Abuse

Unfortunately, we are still seeing an increase in Match Official Abuse. The important part is to report any form of verbal or physical abuse, as whilst some of us across the Society can brush this aside, we need to think of the next referee who officiates the game/team. As a result, I have updated the Match Official Abuse content under ‘Useful Refereeing Documents’ on our website.  

When completing the form please read the information ‘to provide’, as the review process for these incidents follows a similar path to a court of law – it is backed by the evidence presented from both sides. If you require any assistance completing the form, our Disciplinary Sec is more than happy to help. Contact details on the above webpage.

During the latter part of this / off-season we will receive updated material from the RFU to help get the message across. As and when this is received, we will update through the bulletin, pre-season sessions and the website.

Safeguarding Guidance

We received an update from the Safeguarding team relating to speaking with players in their changing rooms. Please read the guidance below, surrounding the Society policy on this.

Match Officials should not visit players or other officials dressing rooms without a clear and obvious invitation. This includes, but not exclusively, rugby players, touch judges, physios and any other relevant person occupying a changing room space.

In the unlikely event that there is a reason to approach the dressing rooms the Match Official must knock the door and wait until called in. They should not enter with the assumption that they will be called/allowed in.

Volunteer Vacancy – Society Secretary

If you are looking to get more involved with the Society and would be willing to volunteer some of your time, then look no further as we have a vacancy. We are recruiting for a new Society Secretary who will be the first point of contact for NMSRFR. The overview of this role is shown below. If you are interested in finding out more, please drop me a note and I can share the full description / set up a chat with the board to discuss further.

Key Tasks:

• Become a Board Member for the North Midlands Referee Society
• To be the first point of contact for:
  • RFU messagesNorth Midlands C.B. and Organisations
  • Other societies
• Arrange Board Meetings / AGM
  • Venue – mix of face to face and online
  • Date / Time
  • Agenda & Notes
  • Circulate follow up actions / decisions
• Attend relevant meetings as the face of the Society
  • North Mids C.B
• Discuss content with other relevant board members for onward communication

To support the role, you will have access to a society email address along with Office 365 suite of products plus other benefits.

If you would like to put your name forward, please drop me an email using this link and we will be in touch.

If you feel this isn’t the right role for you but would be willing to volunteer some of your time to the Society please get in touch as we have a range of roles available to help support our success.

Rosslyn Park 7’s Tournament

Some of our referees have signed up to officiate at the Rosslyn Park 7’s tournament taking place in March 2024. As a society we have agreed to cover the cost of travelling to/from the event for the referees that are taking part.

If you are attending this event, please email our finance team who can discuss the details with you along with the process.

We are also happy to review / support future English based tournaments where our referees are flying the flag for the North Midlands Society. If this applies to you, please get in touch and we can review on a case-by-case basis.

7’s Rugby

This leads on quite nicely as we start to embark on the lovely game of 7’s…now I’m more one for watching than refereeing 7’s these days, but for those that are looking forward to the 7’s season in full flow our Law Expert as kindly provided us with a 7’s briefing document. This is located on our website, which can be found clicking here for those that would like to brush up on their knowledge.

New Feature – Spotlight on our Referees

Over the coming weeks I am looking to run a spotlight on our referees.  I’d like to say this was an original idea, but I saw it following some of the other societies’ social media pages across the UK. If you are happy to participate, please let me know and I can email questions etc across.

The format will be a bunch of questions talking about how you got into refereeing, how you’re doing now, advice for new refs along a couple of quirky questions etc.

Hope you find the above useful and enjoy Refereeing over the coming weeks!

Well its that time again for a bulletin, this year seems to be flying on as we now enter February and more importantly the start of the 6 Nations. Going into the opening weekend I’m looking at any one of 3 / 4 teams could ultimately win it – Can Ireland and France bounce back from what they will both see as under performance at the World Cup? What will this new look England team deliver and how will Scotland and Wales fare, both with a changing of the guard – some out of retirement others through injury. Either way it is set to be a cracking tournament.

Back to the matters of the Society, this week we have an update on Safeguarding from the RFU that we’ve received for onward communication, a new social media page, spot light on some law trivia for you and an update on training for the second half of the season.

Safeguarding

The RFU have published guidance with regards Safeguarding across Junior Rugby and/or any games where U-18s feature, please read the below.

“Match officials must not share cleaning or hygiene spaces (such as showers) with age grade players, regardless of sex. For the avoidance of doubt, this includes all players under 18 years of age, regardless of if they are playing in the adult or age-grade game (which includes Colts rugby).

We recognise there may be occasions when match officials attend new clubs, and therefore please can we encourage match officials to take the lead in managing the logistics associated with changing spaces and showers to ensure privacy and separation.”

If you are / have been assigned to an age grade game please check with the fixture secretary beforehand regarding the changing room situation and showers. It would be great for all match officials to have a separate changing room and shower but this is not always possible.

Any questions regards the above please drop them through to me on email and we can pick up individually.

New Social Media Channel

I have set up a new Instagram page for the Society, as I was unable to gain access to the old one. Please follow us along with sharing any photos you upload to Instagram of your games, the handle is northmidsrefereesociety.

It would be great to start a competition of the best clubs for facilities covering changing rooms, showers, hospitality etc. Simply share your pictures on our Instagram and we’ll pull through the best into the bulletin.

I will also be looking at our other social media channels with a view to lining them all up so communications are shared across all platforms over the coming weeks.

The Laws Corner

Over the next few bulletins I’m introducing ‘The Laws Corner’ which will cover some questions posed to us by our members along with other pieces of information. If you have any burning questions that you wish to clarify please send through to me, using the form at the bottom of this section.

Misconception: “I can’t be offside inside my own in-goal.”

Incorrect: Law 10.1 states “A player is offside in open play if that player is in front of a team-mate who is carrying the ball or who last played it.” Therefore, whilst the opposition is in possession, a defender only has to retreat no further than his/her goal-line to be onside, when his/her own team is in possession within his/her own in-goal, then any player in front of a player who has possession, or passes or kicks the ball IS offside. So folks, EYES OPEN on goal-line dropouts or teams looking to run the ball from their own in-goal.

Three-point stance:

Answer:

If a defender opts to adopt a three-point stance, then the offside line applies to both feet and the hand that’s on the ground. Many “penalty advantage” calls in elite rugby arise from defenders adopting a three-point stance near their own goal-line where although the feet are in goal, the hand on the ground isn’t.

50:22 Question (Taken from the training meeting held at Old Halesonians, 9 January)

Answer:

Why a team receiving the ball in their own half from a kick off or restart kick by their opponents, can’t win a 50:22 from a well placed kick. Answer Law 18.8 refers.

Principle: A team cannot be adversely sanctioned when complying with an obligation so that obligation to kick off or restart with a kick tint other opponent’s half cannot allow those opponents to earn a 50:22 immediately – a phase of play (a contest for the ball) has to occur first.

Similarly, a player cannot claim a “Mark” from a kick-off or restart kick (Law 17.4 refers) as the kicking team is complying with an obligation.

Training

Our last training session was held at Old Hales on the 9 Jan and as we enter further into the second half of the season we will look to hold more both face to face and online. As always we are open to both venues and material from our members, please get in touch if there is something specific you would like to see and/or a preferred venue. With regards venues we look at choosing clubs where our members are generally based in an acceptable radius, so please bear this mind.

We are also looking at running a training session with a guest speaker, utilising Chivs’ extensive rolerdex (for the younger generation that’s what we use to keep phone numbers in before the introduction of mobiles 😉 ). Will keep you updated on this both through the bulletin and our social channels.

Hope you find the above useful and enjoy the weekend of rugby and refereeing.

To kick things off with our first bulletin of 2024, on behalf of the Society, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year!

Well…we’ve had some rain over the last few days, which has led to burst rivers along with flooded ground. This will see some of the weekends’ games postponed, by the picture, courtesy of the BBC, below I think it is safe to say Rugby won’t be taking place at Hereford 🙁

If your weekend game is postponed, please remember to drop a note / text / email / what’s app etc to Vince or Mike for Saturdays, Alex for Sundays and Phil for midweek fixtures so they can update WTR. Details of contact numbers etc can be found on our website by clicking here.

Reflections of a Retired Referee

Some of new will know that one of our long standing referees – John Kelly, (Kel), hung up his whistle towards the back end of last year. Kel has very kindly sent us his reflections; on reading the content I was more than happy to share this it offers great insight for both new and existing referees.

“As a new referee we (should seek and) get feedback from players and coaches. From time to time we will get less biased (and more informed) feedback from a referee Developer. Not all Developer’s advice will work for us individually, so we should take and try it keeping what is useful and discard what doesn’t work for us.

Don’t try to be the next Wayne Barnes – be the first you – and the best you that you can be. We can only manage the players we can see – so position yourself to maximise the number of players you can see and, therefore, manage.

Self-reflection after a match is really valuable:

• Is the score a fair reflection of the abilities of both teams as demonstrated during the match in both attack and defence?
• Could I have gotten away with less whistle?
• Should I have blown more whistle?
• Were there undercurrents that led to a flare up/brawl that I should have detected earlier and managed before that flare up/brawl occurred?
• Did I make any one decision that affected the result and if so am I happy that that decision was correct?

Personally, my objective was to create the forum that allowed the players to express themselves in both attack and defence as long as they did so legally. Hence I focused heavily on offside and played lots of advantage. For me, with a detailed understanding of the principles of each law, most of the technical detail fell into place.”

New Referees

It’s been great to see on our social media pages new referees asking questions about getting games, managing WTR etc as they start their journeys into officiating.

Our website has a page designated to our Referees called ‘Referee Hub‘, this hopefully has all the details required to get started, covering:

• Who’s the Ref (WTR)
• Getting games – setting availability
• Claiming Expenses
• Where to get new kit

If anything is missing please let me know and I can make the necessary changes or make this clearer for you to find.

I am also supporting the Match Official Development team, currently due to injury, whereby I’m happy to come out and assist / assess new referees with their first few matches. If you’d like to get in touch with me please complete the form below and we can explore further.

The Society currently runs an offer whereby we will supply a free North Mids society jersey, and following the completion of 5 society fixtures we will reimburse referee course fees. If you would like more information surrounding this please drop me through your details using the form below.

Contact Visibility in WTR

To end this weeks’ bulletin can all referees ensure that their contact details are set to visible within WTR. When editing / amending your contact details there are a few boxes that need to remain unticked:

• Leave ‘Hide All’ unticked
• Leave ‘Hide Mobile’ unticked
• Fill in your preferred contact method – i.e. Mobile
• If you prefer text message select ‘Text by Default’

The reason for asking for this to be amended is so Fixture Secretaries can contact the referee to confirm the game. If they cannot see the details they have no way of confirming the fixture with you which can sometimes lead to fixtures not being fulfilled.

Any questions with regards this please let me know.

Finally, hopefully you have all seen the social posts surrounding our next Training Event to be held at Old Hales on Tuesday evening, we look forward to seeing as many as possible there covering Refs, Watchers, Developers, YMO’s and Parents.

Enjoy your weekend and happy reffing!