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!

Hope you’ve all had a great Christmas and looking forward to bringing in the New year!

As we wrap up 2023 I thought I’d share some highlights of the year surrounding what we have achieved:

In 2023, using WTR we have allocated referees to 1,591 matches broken down as follows :

Day	Matches
Saturday	730
Sunday	525
Midweek	336

Our Match Official Development team have been out to watch, assess and mentor 221 games; helping us develop our officiating skills.

We also saw a major change with the introduction of the Tackle Height Domestic Law variation; thanks to the tireless work in the back ground by our team of MO tackle champions, Training team and you, as the referees on the pitch, I think it has been a relatively smooth transition. The RFU will continue to evaluate the impact of the law variation as we head into 2024 with further resources being made available if needed.

I’d also like to thank our team of volunteers who tirelessly ensure the Society keeps functioning, fixtures are appointed and we can all carry on doing the things we love for the game of Rugby:

• Appointments team
• Finance
• YMO team
• Membership team
• Match Official Development team
• Training team
• Our Chair and President
• Support team
• Our referees

Bring on 2024!

In other news…

Training 2024

Our next training date is scheduled for the 9 January 2024 to be held at Old Hales RFC, start time is planned for 7pm.

The topic for discussion is a Midseason Review covering the key elements of the first half of the season along with an open floor for questions, discussions points and a chance to mingle with fellow referees, watchers, YMOs are everyone else associated with the Society. We will do the usual of posting on Facebook in the New year to gauge numbers.

We are also in the process of securing a special guest to come along for a future training event, more details to follow when we have firmer details but this will be one not to miss!

Assistant Referees / Touch Judges

Oh the luxury of having a recognised AR…right back to reality ;-). If you are at a game and someone offers to be an AR for you please note we have a World Rugby Directive that we need adhere to, as follows:

Assistant Referees must be officially appointed by the match organiser. If they have not been appointed by the match organiser then they perform the role of Touch Judge. Match organiser is the appointments team.

RFU Match Official Update

Please check out this link to read the December release of the RFU Match Official Update.

Hope you find the above the useful and wishing you all a happy & prosperous New Year.

Hope you are all enjoying the weekend of Rugby, some lovely conditions to referee in with the rain we’ve had. I certainly felt the wind chill at Worcester today on the pitches by the motorway.

Celebrating One of our Own

This weekend sees our very own Training Director, Neil Chivers, as AR for the EPCR Challenge Cup fixture between Perpignan & Emirates Lions. Congratulations Chivs on your appointment.

If you want to catch Chivs on TV I’d go with the highlights unless you have one of these – France TV / beIN SPORTS / SuperSport / FloRugby.

Assessor Games

As a Society we have a number of volunteers who, along with our refs, give there time on a weekend to provide valuable expertise to aid development and assess our referees. If you are assigned an assessor for a game can you please ensure you update them with the following information:

• Game confirmation
• Any changes to venue, kick off time
• Time you plan to arrive
• Cancellations, as soon as possible

Our assesors, whilst appointed through WTR, do not receive the same notifications as the referee. The hosting club will communicate with the referee so if you can share the above with them it will make the admin a lot easier and ensure assessors know what is happening…along with not turning up to cancelled games 😉

Appointments & Cancellations

As a Society we issue appointments through WTR based on the availability set. When you are appointed a game can please ensure you Accept or Decline the fixture at your earliest convenience. Once the appointment is accepted the host club will be notified to make contact confirming the fixture, without the acceptance they’re unaware a ref has been assigned and may look to source their own referee.

If a fixture is not accepted and subsequently unconfirmed, the Society is unable to charge match fees where the hosting club sources their own referee. If you choose to travel to the game under these scenarios you may not be able to claim travel expenses.

England Rugby Match Official Update

Please follow this link to access the latest issue of the England Rugby Match Official update: https://bit.ly/MatchOfficialUpdateNov23   

This month contains training opportunities which includes joining a Developing the Developers Masterclass, links to sign up for the next round of Developing the Developers, Updates for Young Match Officials and much much more. 

And finally…

Last night the Shropshire based referees got together for a Christmas gathering at Beefy Boys in Shrewsbury. Hope you all enjoyed the burgers and had a good night…if only Shrewsbury wasn’t a 2 hour drive away 😉

As a Society we haven’t had a great deal of social events, certainly of late, and something we will look to entertain in the New Year. I will drop a post out on our facebook page to gauge numbers and then possible venues.

I hope you find the above information useful and enjoy the rest of the weekend!