On Wednesday last, Terenure College RFC hosted a “Respect the Referee” Workshop. 

The workshop was hosted by Hon. Sec Eamonn Doherty and included contributions from Paul Haycock (A Level 1 Referee at IRFU since 2003) and Club Solicitor Peter Doyle (Chairman of Disciplinary Committee at TCRFC).

There was strong representation from each team in the Club at the meeting.

The Hon Sec opened the meeting and outlined that there had been some slips in discipline in recent seasons. 

He asked that each Team Manager bring the messages learnt at the meeting to their teams. He said that teams need to learn to respect the referee “from the top down”.

Peter Doyle outlined the importance of having referees – without referees, we would have no game of Rugby, so it was of the utmost importance that the Club defaults to a position that encourages the development of referees.

Paul Haycock offered us a unique insight into how the Referee judges the game and what he’s looking as he’s refereeing a breakdown.  He pointed out the difficulty in assessing all aspects of the game at the same time.   Paul gave as an example what he would be looking at when judging the detail of a ruck or a scrum, stating it's very difficult to judge offside at the very same time.

Paul also explained the differences between refereeing the professional game and the amateur (Club) game.  In the professional game which we all enjoy on TV, the Touch Judges are Assistant Referees (AR’s), who have an input into the game.  However, in our amateur game, Touch Judges can only intervene by raising their flags when the ball goes into touch, goes over the bar, or when they witness foul play.  He stated that we must respect the Referee and the Touch Judges at all times.

The meeting finished with a commitment of every Team Manager to bring the word back to their teams – that the Referee must always be respected, by players, team managers and spectators.

A copy of the presentation is to be delivered to all team managers.