I wish I had a £1 for the number of times I have heard a supporter from the touchline criticise a referee! I always find it amazing how someone can see an incident from 50m away better than a referee who is 2m away? How many people on the touchline have actually refereed, or read the law book? What’s the saying, “Before you criticise someone walk a mile in their shoes”. I for one, never criticise a referee, why? Well it’s because I used to be one, for about 10 years I was on the circuit with the North Midlands Society of Rugby Football Referees (NMSRFR). During this time, I travelled the country, all over the Midlands, from Cornwall to Newcastle, and London to the Lake District, all as a volunteer because I enjoyed it. The thing is I have seen games go ahead with 12 players on each team but I have yet to see a game go ahead without a referee. It doesn’t matter what you think of the referee, good, bad or indifferent, the fact is there wouldn’t be a game without them!
Then there is the pressure a referee must endure, any decision they give they will be vilified by one set of supporters! If a player makes a mistake they will be patted on the back and told they were unlucky, their team mates will rally around to support them! Players make errors all the time, but it appears to me that the referee is the only person on the pitch who is not allowed to make any!
Most players start at an early age, some as young as 4 or 5, and then spend the rest of their playing days learning and being coached. Most referees start later in life, many after their playing days were over, like me. Doing it this way means that you must learn a whole new skill set and a knowledge of the laws in a short space of time. These days you are sent on a course, take an exam, you are mentored and assessed. I remember contacting the NMSRFR and said I would like to try refereeing, they sent me a Law book and told me my first game was at Woodrush on Saturday!
So, for the first time ever, I had to look at a Law Book and learn it! Let me put this into perspective for you! The IRB (International Rugby Board) law book is 146 pages long and this doesn’t include the separate RFU regulations. One of these regulations is “Regulation 15”. This has a whole set of Law variations for Youth Rugby, each age group from U7 to U18 have a slightly different set of Laws. A referee must know these as they were developed for the safety of the players!
In the IRB Laws of Rugby Football Union there are just 21 Laws, but that doesn’t tell the whole story! Each of these Laws have sections, some sections are broken down into more specific elements. This means that there are 370 laws to learn (not including the minor elements)! For example, Law 7. Advantage: has 16 different elements to it and Law 15. The Ruck: has 19 sections, and section 16 has 7 elements!
So, for example. When a referee sees a tackle (Law 14) there are 36 elements to the tackle law, if a ruck (Law 15) is formed straight after the tackle, then there are a further 25 points to look for under the Ruck law, and on top of that if some form of infringement occurs is it a Scrum, Penalty or Free Kick? When the ball goes out into touch for a lineout (Law 18) there are 87 elements the referee needs to know about, and on top of that they need to understand which 15 specific offences are free kicks and which 6 specific offences are a full penalty.
How do we know what infringement the referee blew his whistle for? Well you look for the signal, we all probably know what the offside signal is, or holding on to the ball in a tackle, high tackle or not releasing, but did you know that there are 25 separate referee signals in the law book!
There are also some very obscure laws that if given in a game would cause havoc! Did you know that you can score a try even if you were in touch! (Law 8.2.e) A try is scored when an attacking player: Who is outside the playing area, grounds the ball in the opponents’ in-goal provided the player is not in possession of the ball.
This is a far cry from the original laws of 1845, there were just 37 rules some of them make the mind boggle, for example: Rule xviii (18) A player having touched the ball straight for a tree, and touched the tree with it, may drop from either side if he can, but the opposite side may oblige him to go to his own side of the tree. What??
And: Rule XX (20) All matches are drawn after 5 days, but after 3 if no goal has been kicked.
At top level there are a team of qualified referees who will take up different roles. The Referee, 2 Assistant Referees and a 4th Official (also a qualified referee) who will look after substitutions. There is also the TMO, the acronym stands for Television Match Official. The TMO, a qualified referee will usually sit in a van outside the ground and watches the game through monitors showing multiple angles of the action. The referee can go to the TMO to clarify a decision, the TMO might also request the referee to review footage for an infringement they might have missed.
Also, Citing Commissioners are appointed by the RFU for all Premiership and Championship matches and are entitled to cite a player for any act or acts of Foul Play that in the Citing Commissioner's opinion warranted a red card which the match officials might have missed. This means that getting away with anything at the top level is very difficult! However, at our level none of this is available to the referee, very often the touch judges are provided by the clubs and do not have to be qualified referees.
The referee in the middle is on their own! So, Please, next time you are watching a game spare a thought for the referee, without whom the game wouldn’t be happening. They are volunteers and remember he/she is only human! One of the great things about our game and one we as rugby people are very proud of, is the respect that referees get during the game, there is no arguing, players don’t surround the referee to question a decision, if they do they are rightly penalised for it! If this element of our game is to continue then we must all, not just the players, but the spectators too, always respect the match officials!
