From the Society Chair:

I am very pleased to announce that Leonie Pryor has been appointed to a full time role with the RFU as a Match Official Developer.

Leonie will be part of a team of 4 others working for National Manager for Match Official Development, Michael Patz (also a North Mids Referee!) and is likely to cover The Midlands and South West England. Initially she will be focusing on recruitment and delivering courses.

Leonie said of her selection;

I didn’t think there was a job out there that could tear me away from nattering to farmers over a cuppa but when I saw the role of Match Official Developer for the RFU advertised I knew straight away that was for me.

This year has been full of exciting rugby adventures and this is just the icing on the cake. I’m looking forward to being part of the team and getting started in the new role early in the new year. 

Leonie, on behalf of the Society, many congratulations!

On Wednesday three of our best young referees Peter Hunt, Olly Robertson and James Davis were in action as a TO3 at Sixways, refereeing at the Modus Cup, the traditional matchup between two of our region’s biggest rugby schools, King’s Worcester and RGS Worcester. The game was live streamed by schools rugby specialist www.nextgenxv.com and can be seen on YouTube here

If you have ambitions to experience similar games, you might be interested in some new guidance published on the Useful Documents page: this gives a useful insight into how referees are graded, upgraded, and can progress to higher things!

Our resident ‘Law Expert’ has also been busy: see what the expert says about the matter of timings around Yellow Cards by clicking here

Finally for those that have spare time on their hands, all 80 pages of the judgement on the Rassie Erasmus / Nic Berry match official abuse case from the 2021 Lions Tour of South Africa can be read in full by clicking here

Lets enjoy the tremendous strides forward made by two of our members.

Leonie Pryor and Neil Chivers were both chosen to act as 4^th and 5^th officials at the men’s and women’s varsity matches held at Welford Road, Leicester recently.

Since then Neil has continued with Championship games until he was appointed as a Premiership AR at Gloucester v Newcastle with Wayne Barnes in the middle.

Leonie has now been appointed to three Alliance Premier Cup matches in succession, Worcester v Saracens, Harlequins v Gloucester Hartpury and this week Gloucester Hartpury v Darlington.

To top that achievement on Sunday 7^th November Leonie was the 5^th Official in the Womens International played at Northampton RFC – England v New Zealand.

Congratulations to both, long may it continue.

There is still time to sign up for the next England Rugby Referees Award course, which takes place in Birmingham on 28th November.

As you all probably know by now, there is a distinct shortage of referees in the community game. If every club and school sent just one candidate (Young Match Official or adult) to a training course, then this shortage will begin to be addressed immediately!

Please see below for details or email webmaster@northmidsrefs.co.uk for more info

By now there should have been at least some instances of the Global Law Trials (goal-line dropout, 50-22 kick, ‘Flying Wedge’, clearout of the jackler, 1-player-pre-latched), in games that you have refereed so far this season.

The RFU would like more feedback from the grassroots game (level 6 and below) on whether these are workable laws going forward, so that they can in turn feed back to World Rugby.

Please therefore take a moment to complete the short survey which you can find by clicking here

The feedback is for any specific game that you’ve refereed recently, so if you have time please complete the form multiple times, one for each game that you wish to feed back on.

Thank you for your help!