28th May

Two games this Saturday, one as a referee and one as a touch judge. The first game was great fun, I think I did really well. I was at all the breakdowns, ran good lines and communicated well. In fact I really had no problems, except for my tendancy to lose the ball from time to time. I think it's a positioning thing, so I'll have to work on that over the next few weeks. I certainly achieved my goal of increasing my work rate around the in goal. I had a couple of instances where I needed to be in the right spot to make the call, and I was.

The second game as a touch judge was a great game. I really enjoyed watching the action. Unfortunately I had to flag a player for stomping which resulted in a yellow card. I didn't think it was worth a yellow card, but I didn't make that decision. I was able to have a bit of a laugh with one of the players regarding what he perceived as a bad non call. I told him, "I'm not wired" meaning I didn't have any comms gear on. Shortly after when I was behind the posts he said, "Since you guys have flash uniforms I figured you were wired."

On a downside, I think I'm getting tendonitis in my achilles again, hopefully I can live with it, it's uncomfortable now, not painful. I just hope it doesn't get much worse.

25th May

Like most Wednesday today I had a school girls game. The guy in charge of rugby at school hadn't said anything to me so I assumed it was normal place at the normal time. Turned out I was wrong, fortunately there was a game there and both teams were happy for me to do the game.

It was actually a really hard game to do, not because of the running, or the slightly unpredictable school girls, but because both sides wore red and blue uniforms. One with vertical stripes, one with horizontal stripes. Suddenly figuring out who was on what team was very hard.

Overall I had a pretty good game. I know what I need to work on for Saturday, I lost sight of the ball at a couple of rucks only to have it suddenly come back on the other team's side. Almost certainly illegally, but I didn't see what happened. Plus once again I need to lift my workrate near the goal line. I got caught out of position for one try, and while I'm sure it was grounded, I should have been working harder and been much closer. I have to eliminate this from my game.

Unfortunately one player I suspect broke her ankle, she took a nasty fall and right away I knew she was hurt, and I blew play up shortly after to check on her. Luckily there were two St John's staff on hand to look after her. For some reason the girls seem to think I'm going to stop the game for anyone who stays down. Late in the second half another girl went down, half her team stopped and the other team scored a run away try. They can only blame themselves too, twice someone said, "Ref, injury" and twice I said, "we're playing on." She was nowhere near the play, and wasn't seriously hurt. Turns out it was cramp, painful I know but hardly worth stopping the game for.

I'm looking forward to this Saturday, I only have the one game to referee plus another one to touch judge but I know some parts of my game are really starting to come together and I know what I need to work on.

Saturday 21st May

Why was rugby even on this week? The field I had was completely sodden. The cricket pitch was a complete bog and have several centimeters of water on the surface and the field started to cut up during my warm up. Not a good sign.

One of the coaches this week actually introduced me to his captain and told me he'd be the only one to speak to me during the game. Great, why can't we have more organised guys like this? The other team didn't seem interested in me at all, I had to ask for them to let me check their boots and the prematch briefing, urgh, I'm sure they didn't hear one word I said.

It was actually a pretty good match to referee, altho one team was clearly better than the other. The conditions didn't really lead to good rugby either. I thought I was going well, running good lines, keeping up with play.

The second half things went down hill a bit as both the players and I tired from trying to run on such a heavy ground. After one lineout which I ruled not straight I looked for the captain to ask what he wanted and couldn't find him. I look over to see him and the opposition halfback having a fairly heated discussion. I admonished the captain, "Maybe if you were paying attention to the game instead of talking trash you'd know what was going on. " and thought that would be the last of it.

It wasn't, with time up on the clock and his team up 41-o he got into yet another verbal slanging match, this time I was much more severe. "You're walking a very fine line skipper." Fortunately the game was over very shortly after that.

Upon further investigation I found that there is a law regarding that kind of on-field behaviour and I do have the power to deal with it. Needless to say, the next player who does something like that better watch out!