The Society’s April Central Meeting gathered at our new venue in the Auditorium of the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI), Belgrave Square and included a fantastic session from Nick Buoy of Brighton College on the ethos of refereeing youth rugby.
Nick delivered a thoroughly engaging talk, keeping it as interactive as possible which definitely challenged all of our thinking on how we might approach officiating age grade rugby. As well as some really great insight, the overview provided everyone with some really practical takeaways that we can all put to good use come match day.
As well as the primary focus on safety, Nick emphasised the importance that learning and enjoyment has in the experience youth players have as they increase their familiarity with the game.
The importance of referees striking the right balance between managing and disciplining was brought home with Nick’s analysis of ‘rolling ball’ time. Giving our younger players the time to play as much rugby as possible is so crucial to their development and to nurturing their love of the game.
Nick got everyone thinking through real game scenarios of how we as referees might maximise players time on the ball (in a game where Nick revealed that players are off the ball on average 98% of the time in a game!). What might you do as a referee in managing lineouts on a really windy day? How might you sell those marginal calls to reward attacking endeavour, enterprise and skill?
Using an online and interactive survey (which even the less tech savvy of those amongst us succeeded at!), Nick led a discussion on developing those stock phrases that can help younger and newer players to the game. It was agreed that keeping the language relatable to that younger generation and minimising technical words as much as possible should be an aim for all of us – will those younger players really understand what we mean if we talk too much about ‘materiality’? What can we say to encourage good behaviours, responses to our calls and to keep the ball flowing? ‘Good enough for me’; ‘play on’; and ‘Nothing obvious for me’ were amongst some of the plain English examples that were offered up.
Nick’s talk ended with a video session that really helped bring to life the scenarios we explored and how our decisions and management as referees can really make a difference at age grade.
A huge thank you to Nick for giving his time and delivering a wonderful talk.
