The United Rugby Championship, URC, has announced Tappe Henning as its new Head of Match Officials. On his appointment, he exclaimed eagerness to spearhead a ‘collaborative approach’ between referees and coaches to encourage positive play.
The South African succeeds Greg Garner, who had served as the league’s Elite Referee Manager since 2017 until earlier this year.
Henning will be responsible for overseeing match official selections for URC fixtures, leading the review and analysis process alongside the five union referee managers from across the URC and identifying new refereeing talent. The referees themselves remain contracted to their own Unions in the URC, rather than being centrally governed and managed.
Henning, 60, left Scottish Rugby recently having served as the union’s Referee Commissioner since 2013. He’d held a similar position at SA Rugby prior to that. In his whistling days, he took charge of 14 Test matches and was named to the match officials panel for the 1999 Rugby World Cup. At the age of 34 he became the youngest referee of a Currie Cup Final in 1995 and went on to take charge of the 1997 Super Rugby Final between the Blues and the Brumbies.
David Jordan, Tournament Director, United Rugby Championship, said, “After a very thorough process we very pleased to have appointed Tappe Henning as our Head of Match Officials. Tappe’s CV provides him with a balance of experience that is very unique and well catered to the United Rugby Championship, given that he has refereed at the highest levels in South Africa and in Super Rugby and due to his eight years with Scottish Rugby he has a full knowledge of our landscape in the north and how our match official process functions.
“This is a very challenging role and we know Tappe is very eager to build upon the foundations laid in place by his predecessors Ed Morrison and, most recently, Greg Garner.”
Commenting himself, Henning enthused, “I am extremely excited about the cross-hemisphere competition of the United Rugby Championship and the goal of bringing together north and south to create a collaborative approach which will encourage positive play.
“With so many differing styles of play in the URC it will require a big effort from myself, our match officials, the clubs and their coaches to mutually agree on our core principals so everyone knows what to expect. With a partnership based on mutual respect towards the different rugby cultures and playing styles – coaches and match officials can work towards a product that will be unique to the rugby world.”
