National Referee Camp Prepares Officials For New Season

The weekend of August 12^th & 13^th saw the IRFU annual National Referee Camp take place. Due to refereeing commitments, traditionally this is the only time in a season the full panel have the opportunity to get together in person where old friendships continue and new members have the opportunity to meet their new team members for the first time.

Hosted in the IRFU High Performance Centre, Saturday morning saw the fitness testing completed with a speed test over 40 metres and Bronco test which assesses aerobic endurance over a distance of 1200 metres . Once again, it was evident the amount of work that was put in by the referees with some very impressive results adding to the usual level of competition within the group.

Saturday afternoon saw the focus switch to more technical elements of refereeing with the panel working on some key areas of the game preparing for the new season. Some of the work done looked at the tackle height trial along with specific breakdown work which was facilitated by an experienced AIL coach. To have a current coach join the group was a new venture and proved a big success as it allowed good healthy debate between all and allowed views from both the coach and the referee perspective.

Sunday morning saw the continuation of the camp with a summary and follow on from Saturday before a very beneficial session on “managing moments” led by Kevin McManamon who works as the mental skills coach with our High-Performance Referees.

The Provincial Referee seminars will take place setting all domestic refereeing up for the new year. To help our domestic referees prepare, we were delighted to again be able to run a pre-season S&C programme in each province which was again very well attended.

For more information on refereeing you can visit our section on the Irish Rugby website: https://www.irishrugby.ie/playing-the-game/refereeing/