Major League Rugby (MLR) have announced that the former South African test referee Jonathan Kaplan is to lead the appointment and development of match officials for the 2021 season. Kaplan, now based out of Toronto, Canada, retired from the elite game in 2013. He will be assisted by Kiwi, Chris Pollock in a technical advisor role.
Between them, Kaplan and Pollock have refereed at six Rugby World Cups and 96 international matches, including five Lions Tours. Since retiring, Pollock has been involved with tier 2 rugby and referee development as well as keeping close to the Major League Rugby officials in previous seasons.
“We are pleased to welcome Jonathan Kaplan and Chris Pollock to Major League Rugby,” said MLR Commissioner George Killebrew (pic right), “Their calibre speaks for itself and their experience at the highest level will no doubt be beneficial for our growing pool of officials.”
The duo will focus on developing existing talent in North America and, similar to previous years, will be supplementing this with a pool of referees from overseas.
“We are both very excited to be able to contribute to the refereeing landscape in MLR,” said Kaplan. “We’re hoping to use our experience and knowledge of the game at the elite level to identify and develop match officials with the express aim of improving the quality of the game in MLR and in North America.”
“We recognise the importance of the referee in the middle in facilitating an action packed and easy to understand game for fans to fall in love with. We look forward to using Jonathan and Chris’ expertise to help lead this,” said Killebrew.
Kaplan replaces Richard Avery, while we believe Chris replaces Steve Lander, formerly a professional referee with the RFU in England.
The 2021 season is expected to start in February, subject to the ramifications of the Covid-19 situation. The third season was abandoned in March after only five rounds, as the scale of the virus struck the US.
I fear that the new strictness around the ruck is having the opposite effect to the one intended. Now with sometimes with up to 40 penalties per match, more time is wasted than saved. I have timed several matches, clocking the time from penalty awarded to the ball thrown in from the ensuing line out. It has been as brief as 57secs and long as 74secs..(kick for touch,huddle to sort out call. walk to line out..throw ball in.) This in effect means almost a whole half of live play can be lost. Imagine paying £165 for a Twickenham match and suffering that!! Your response will doubtless be..players and refs. will settle it down to something more reasonable.Let’s hope so or games will not be worth watching ..despite the 6 month absence