Level 1 Rugby Referee’s Course
Wed 12th Dec, Peebles HS 4pm –
8pm
This
course will allow you to referee all rugby up to and including Under-16
fixtures. All members of the Rugby
Club and senior pupils at Peebles High School who have an interest are
encouraged to take part so you are able to referee with some S1 – S4 games in
the future as well as the possibility of taking up refereeing more seriously and
progressing through the different levels onto senior games.
It
is a great way for players to enhance their knowledge of the laws therefore
making them better rugby players!!
We
as a club and school here in Peebles are growing the game at a good pace, but
all the good work in producing more players will be for nothing if we cannot
provide referees for the games so this is important.
Please
put your name and contact details down on the sheet at the school or phone/email
me direct to book a place and I will be in touch will confirmed
dates/times/places. It would
particularly be good to see some senior club players coming along!!
Graeme Paterson, Peebles RFC Dev Officer
Refereeing
Courses
As some of you may be aware there is a lack of qualified referee’s in
the country at the moment and we really need to address this sooner rather than
later. It does come down to us within the clubs to help out with this problem
before it turns into a crisis. What we don’t want is to have all the good work
of growing the number of people playing rugby thrown away because there was no
referee for their game and the game was cancelled.
This problem was highlighted at this club last Saturday when the Colts
and Colts Development XV’s were due to take on their respective Jed
counterparts. The original referee had said that he would do both games, back to
back, however this simple plan fell through due to injury forcing him to call
off. The next allocated ref was just coming back from an injury and felt,
justifiably, that he wasn’t ready to do 2 games in a row.
This left us scrambling about in the run up to the weekend attempting to
get a neutral ref for the Development game. Our last hope was that one of the
travelling Jed staff was qualified and able to officiate. Thankfully one of
their members stepped up to the plate and offered to do the game, and did a fine
job too, allowing the game to be played. If he hadn’t done so approximately 44
boys aged between 15 – 17yrs would have had no rugby outlet on a Saturday
afternoon and been left kicking their heels, frustrated and having no game for
which they had trained all week for.
What is the point to this story? Well if that kindly gent from Jed
hadn’t stepped in at the eleventh hour how many of that pool of 44 boys would
have been lost to rugby forever – not many I hear you cry, but if it keeps
happening week after week then quite a few is the answer, and how many can we
afford to lose – absolutely none!!!!
What is my plea and solution to this problem? We need more people –
current members/players of Peebles RFC, High School pupils and anyone in the
area who is a future member of the club – to step forward and have a go at
refereeing. We need somewhere in the region of 12 people from the club to
complete their Level 1 Referee’s course (approx 4 hrs) and give us a pool of
qualified officials to operate at the lower age grades initially. This means
maybe High School S1 – 4 games and possibly Colts Dev fixtures. This will
hopefully push the more experienced refs currently operating at this level on to
the next and create some development of their careers as well as starting a new
batch of refs.
If I can get at least 12 (more is better) names to commit to this now
then I can get a training day arranged through Ian Heard who is the Borders SRU
Referee Development Officer.
This is a great opportunity to get into a different area of the game,
which will benefit our younger players in this area and make a real difference
to them. For current players it will definitely enhance your knowledge and
awareness of the game and for former players it would be a great way of putting
something back at grass roots level. We are, as a club and community growing the
game of rugby in Peeblesshire, and need to support these new players and teams.
Can you commit to a couple of hours on a Saturday morning occasionally?
If the answer is yes, then get in touch with me and we can get the ball rolling.
It’s an old saying, but true – “you can’t have a game of rugby
without a referee” – and unless we get some more referees now then maybe the
number of games will become less and less. Let’s do our bit as a club and take
some positive action – now!!!!
Thanks for your support
Graeme Paterson
Peebles RFC Development Officer
Phone – 07812 028 172
E-mail – graemeipaterson@aol.com