Pathway created to grow as a referee

Young men between the ages of 18 and 35 years are encouraged to apply to become a referee in the newly launched Namibia Rugby Referee Academy.

A structured pathway has been laid out in conjunction with the South African Rugby Union and the Namibia Rugby Union.

“In the rugby-loving Namibian nation we have one big frustration with referees. Most are not close to international standards, causing local school and senior rugby teams to not only be frustrated, but to be uncertain of what they can and cannot do in certain situations on the field.

“This has a detrimental effect on the success of Namibian rugby teams – from school to senior teams). Sometimes provincial and school teams from South Africa express concerns about playing in Namibia, because of the substandard of refereeing.

“The rugby committee of Windhoek Gymnasium has been seeing this situation, with big concern next to rugby fields. In our nature, we want to provide a solution wherever we identify a problem in our country.

“We approached SARU, in particular Mr. Deon van Blommestein, who is responsible for the development and quality control of referees at SARU. He shared our concerns and offered that SARU will help us to address the problem – and physically be involved in the process – from training of referees (by hand of a Playbook for every situation on the field) to continued professional development and the review of matches to identify mistakes made by referees, in order for them to learn and grow from it.

“The Namibia Rugby Referee Academy (an amateur sports organisation) has now been established. Through this entity the recruitment, training, coaching and review of referees will be done, according to structures recommended by SARU.

“Referees and assistant referees will be paid per game Their travelling and accommodation costs will also be paid by the NRRA. Their performance will initially be adjudicated by SARU, whereafter local coaches and moderators will be identified and appointed. Reasoning behind this is to get total an independent performance appraisal of the officials involved in order to created credibility and honest opinion of the current status quo.

“Should their performance be below standard, they can lose a portion of their game fees.

“The focus is on the professional and objective evaluation of the referee’s performance, and appropriate guidance and training to improve his performance in the future.



POSSIBILITIES

“Besides the benefit of being involved in the game of rugby and being paid for matches, the ultimate achievement for these referees will be the opportunities, based on their performance, to referee at Craven Week schools tournaments, Rugby Africa matches and more – even the Rugby World Cup if their performance reach that level.

An annual sponsorship of N$250”000 has been received from King Price, who shares the concerns about refereeing and the effect it has on especially schools rugby in Namibia.

The project has been welcomed, approved and supported by the Namibia Rugby Union, who shares concern over the ongoing lack of numbers and the pressure it puts on active referees.

Contact Jannie de Beer at [email protected] for further information. Applications should be in before 5 April, whereafter training by the SARU referees will be arranged.