A round up of stories from around the refereeing world that you may have missed. We’ll be bringing you this sort of round up on a monthly basis. Feel free to email us with any stories you see locally we can include!
World Rugby sneak in 11th law variation option
As previously announced, World Rugby have unveiled a series of ten law variation options unions can look into using to help rugby restart. Most were aimed at reducing player contact time (so eliminating scrum resets, limiting ruck lengths and reducing players in the maul etc).
But what wasn’t in the press statement was an extra option – removing the pre-contact latch. In the mail-out to Unions for distribution, it included this line
EXCO further approved that an optional law trial may be conducted whereby the pre-contact latch becomes an offense in law and is sanctionable with a penalty.
World Rugby. 2 June
Be interesting to see if anyone adds this into their post-Covid rugby!
Post publication edit: World Rugby advise there’s more to this – coming out soon! Watch out for it!
Super Rugby Aotearoa to restart with law innovations
As New Zealand rugby get back out on the paddock, the local five-team round robin competition will include some law tweaks and ‘new’ focus areas. Super Rugby revealed last week they will be testing an orange card principle, whereby a red carded player can be replaced by a substitute player after 20 minutes. There will also a be a golden score period to try and eliminate drawn matches too. The final change will be a more stringent focus by the match officials to enforce breakdown rules to create a faster and safer game.
The sent-off player cannot return to the field and will face Sanzaar’s existing judicial process. NZ Head of Professional Rugby, Chris Lendrum said on that point, “While players should, and still will be, punished for foul play, red cards can sometimes have too much of an effect on a match. There are no winners when a player is red carded, but paying rugby fans, players and coaches want to see a fair contest. Replacing a player after 20 minutes strikes the right balance.” Our RugbyReferee.net judgment is on hold for that one, but we see the thinking and it’s worth testing on a competition like this.
On the breakdown, NZR National Referee Manager, Bryce Lawrence said the existing laws at the breakdown would be applied more strictly to create faster attacking ball and a fairer contest. “We’re not changing the laws of the game, we’re being stricter about how we referee them.” The key focal points for the referees will be:
- Ball carriers will be allowed only one dynamic movement after being tackled.
- Crawling, or any secondary movement other than placing or passing, will be penalised.
- Tacklers will be expected to roll away immediately in the direction of the side-line. This will be a referee’s “number one priority” at the tackle.
- There will be “extra focus” on the offside line with defenders expected to be “clearly” onside to provide attacking teams more space.
Whether we like this or not, it’ll be great to see rugby back happening again!
Brazil referees leading the SudAmerica drive
Former Brazilian international players Natasha Olsen (pic left) and Cristiana Futuro Mühlbauer have risen in the refereeing ranks both in their country and the region. Here’s a feature article from World.Rugby’s ‘Women in Rugby’ series which follows their refereeing journeys from international player to international referees.
Nievas upping the stakes on female referees
World Rugby’s Referee Development Manager (and Advantage Over podcast guest), Alhambra Nievas has been making the most of Lockdown by implementing a Virtual High Performance Academy, aimed at both female and male match officials. Nievas is leading the female group with referees from Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Kenya, Samoa, USA and Zimbabwe. The participants have learnt from Nievas, Alain Rolland, Paddy O’Brien and Craig Joubert over online sessions every fortnight. “Our ambition is to make sure we do not leave any union or region behind” during the crises” said Nievas. Full story here
RugbyAfrica supporting referees and match official coaches
RugbyAfrique has also been supporting it’s match officials with 42 participants (including 11 women) set up on a two month development programme. They were split into a smaller English-speaking group, comprised of Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia & Zimbabwe, and a much larger French-speaking group, with 35 participants (including eight women) from Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Senegal & Tunisia. World Rugby’s Alain Rolland has again been leading the sessions.
Mudiwa Mundawarara, Rugby Africa Referee Manager, said “The technology most of us have now will enable us to take such development initiatives more widely than just to the Rugby Africa Panel. And it’s great to have a small group of female referees included too. We hope this will be the start of a series of development initiatives aimed specifically at women match officials.”
The sessions look at the Breakdown (tackle and ruck), Scrum, Foul play, Lineout/Maul and creating space in the game.
Beryl Akinyi, from Kenya Rugby (pictured above), commented: “The workshop was very educative and I enjoyed the session, learnt a few things and refreshed on others that I already knew’’.
We want your stories
If you’re seeing stories about referees from your part of the world, let us know and we’ll include them in our next monthly roundup.
